The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) is preparing a computerised database of all medicines available on the open market after two medicines for radically different maladies appeared on the market at the same time with the same name. “There are around 72,000 registered medicines available in the market, of which as many as 52,000 have been registered in the database. After the compilation of a centralised database, the chances of two drugs being registered under the same name will be greatly reduced,” Drap Chief Executive Officer Dr Muhammad Aslam told Dawn on Friday. The case he is referring to involves two drugs named ‘Valtec’. According to the website www.druginfosys.com, one of them belongs to Genome Pharmaceutical (Pvt) Ltd while the other is manufactured by Tabros Pharma. Two drugs meant to treat two wholly different health problems were being sold in the market. It is indeed serious that it took an exercise in national data-gathering to bring to light this fact. The way Pakistan has dealt with the challenges of the medicine sector is far from satisfactory. Drugs are freely available without prescription. Among the many aspects that need to be addressed on an emergency basis, not least important is the issue of unqualified salesmen who offer substitutes to medicines prescribed by doctors. They may justify the alternative on the basis of price or availability or, as it is sometimes alleged, the seller could be trying to promote his favourite brand. But, more dangerously, he could also be ignorant when it comes to guiding a buyer about two drugs with one name. It would seem that those who allowed these drugs that were meant to treat two different ailments to be sold in the market have never visited the Pakistani equivalent of a pharmacy. A ‘medical store’ in any neighbourhood of the country provides a revealing lesson in much that is wrong or in need of fixing.
pk.shafaqna.com
