As a part of its countrywide crackdown against the unauthorised and illegal increases in prices of medicine, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), on Sunday, claimed to have taken stocks of 83 medicines in its custody.
According to information available to media sources, the authority also registered cases against 28 pharmaceutical companies. DRAP’s spokesperson asserted that it had acted against firms on overpricing in Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi.
Stocks of 226 medicines belonging to 59 pharma companies were also said to be confiscated.
In Lahore alone, he added, DRAP had seized pharmaceutical companies’ medicines worth millions of rupees.
The regulator had tightened its noose around firms involved with the illegal drug price hike while adding these companies would be heavily fined and tried in cases as per the drug act.
Earlier, stocks of as many as 143 medicines being sold at inflated rates were seized on March 6. DRAP had also fined the pharmaceutical companies involved in the illegal and authorised hike in the prices of medicine; barring them from producing drugs until further orders.
Earlier, Health Minister Aamir Kiani had taken notice of medicines being sold at skyrocketing prices. He had also directed the regulator to act against the pharma companies over illegal price increases.
The government had decided to introduce an online system through which people would be able to verify the prices of medicines, he added.