Federal government on Thursday, approved medicine price hike of up to 262 per cent
The price hike, ranging from 9 per cent to 262 per cent has been approved for a total of 94 medicines.
Sources say that the price hike is due to various reasons including availability issues along with depreciation and devaluation of Pakistani Rupees.
Increase in production costs, and prices of raw materials has also contributed to the medicine price hike.
The medicines subjected to the price hike include antibiotics, abdominal pain, medicines for eye, ear, tooth, mouth and blood infection, skin diseases, post-childbirth medications, drugs used to treat fever, headache, heart disease, malaria, diabetes, sore throat and flu.
Out of the 94 medicines, 68 are locally manufactured whereas 26 are imported.
The medicine price hike includes the provision to prevent pharmaceutical companies from increasing medicine prices until June 2021.
Prior to this, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) had approved up to 10 per cent hike in medicine prices after amendment in Drug Pricing Policy 2018 back in July this year.
