LAHORE: Despite being approved by the relevant committees at the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, an unnecessary route through the Prime Minister’s House is delaying the registration of many important drugs of blood pressure, cancer, arthritis, respiratory diseases and diabetes. A meeting of the Drug Pricing Committee of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) was held in May last year, and its minutes are still to be approved by the prime minister. Similarly, the minutes of another meeting of the DPC held in June 2016 and the recent ones (DPC 21 and 22) held in April and May, respectively, this year are yet to be approved. “As there is only Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Saira Afzal Tarar, and no federal minister, according to the law only the prime minister can make the decisions and give approval on behalf of the ministry, which is resulting in inordinate delays due to the commitments of the PM,” said a source. The source added that the minutes of all DPC meetings were on hold because the prime minister had not given approval to them, which was very unfortunate for the pharmaceutical industry of the country as well as to the poor patients suffering from different diseases. Around 2,700 drugs, including lifesaving drugs, are in pending for approval and few important therapeutic areas of the said drugs include blood pressure, cancer, arthritis, respiratory diseases and diabetes,” the source added. It is worth adding here that a study shows that approximately 40 percent of the improvement in mortality is due to innovative medicines alone. In the cardiovascular space, innovative medicines contributed to a 28 percent reduction in death rate on account of cardiovascular diseases between 1997 and 2007. Similarly, death rate due to heart failure and heart attack (post-hospitalisation) fell by 45 percent between 1999 and 2005, primarily due to medicines and interventional treatments. Also, in diabetes, biopharmaceutical innovation has led to the development of eight new classes of medicines over time, further improving the quality of life and outcomes for this population. Today, diabetic patients can expect to live longer than those diagnosed 20 years ago. In fact, diabetic patients who take medications are less likely to develop major risk factors for premature death from heart disease, such as lipid disorders and high blood pressure. Similarly, cancer is considered to be the most notorious disease but many types of cancers are curable if treated at the early stage of the disease. In developed countries, recently discovered innovative cancer medicines are providing cure to the patients but these drugs, in addition to many others already discussed, are still not available in our country even after the approval of the Drug Registration Board because the prime minister has not signed the minutes of the Drug Pricing Committee. Thousands of patients have suffered from the disease, worsening of the cancer and ultimately loss of their lives over the past years. These patients could have been saved if the drugs were made available upon the recommendation of the DRAP. The government is still ignorant to this development and in the habit of delaying general public’s access to quality medicines, which is evident from this delay in the approval of minutes, aggravating the already fragile situation. The source added that the DRAP had become a complete failure that could not address many serious issues, including substandard and/or counterfeit medicines, no policy making, ill planning, poor enforcement of even distorted law, toll manufacturing issues, and most importantly the pricing issues.