Indian medicines have become the latest among pakistan import

[ADAMANSKA]

Seems you may taken some of that medication yourself

Read it again. China exported them to UK??!!

 

[SixSigma1978]

Indian pharmaceuticals are cheaper because they use inferior formulations, have lower purities or may even be counterfeit. I suggest no one that values their life to buy Indian medication.

 

[drunken-monke]

Pakistan may often be at odds with neighboring India, but that has not stopped Indian products from being immensely popular in this country.

Indeed, these days, medicines have become the latest among Indian imports - which include movies and music - that have captured the fancy of Pakistani consumers.

In the North West Frontier Province, and especially in the adjacent tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border, the medicines provide brisk business for drugstores.

All sorts of medicines from India are sold, including the most commonly prescribed drugs such as aspirin, Amoxillin, Ampicillin, Co-trimaxazole, Laxotanil, Ciprofloxine, Renitidin, Famotidine and Cemetidine.

Under Pakistani law, though, only medicines that are approved and registered with the health department can be sold in the country. Since the Indian drugs sold openly over the counter in the tribal areas are neither, the trade in them is illegal.

People, however, say officials are deliberately looking the other way because of the skyrocketing prices of Pakistani medicines.

Remarks Karim Khan, a tribesman from Khyber Agency, "By ignoring the Indian medicines, the government is doing great service to the poor people."

Some doctors are now even telling poor patients to seek out Indian medicines. This is largely because Indian drugs can be 10 times cheaper than those manufactured in Pakistan by the same multinational companies (MNCs).

Malik Akhtar Khan, who has been a pharmacist in Peshawar for decades, says Pakistani drug prices are high because the government allows the MNCs to import raw materials from their parent countries. In comparison, he says, pharmaceutical firms in India are bound by law to use local materials. In addition, says Khan, "MNCs, which normally have very high budgets, exploit their trademark."

India, of course, is known for having no adequate patent system for pharmaceuticals, save for the 70-year patents for drug production processes. This has enabled Indian firms to produce generic drugs that they sell at a fraction of the cost of branded medicines. As a result, MNCs have also been forced to lower their prices.

The Indian drug manufacturing system - which will undergo changes under the government's commitments to world trade rules - has been the envy of many developing countries.

Along with other goods, Indian medicines are smuggled into Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal areas, and then eventually find their way to Peshawar. Afghanistan receives thousands of US dollars worth of medicines each month from India under a bilateral agreement. But some unscrupulous agencies in Kabul are apparently making huge profits from the arrangement and selling them in the tribal areas.

Medicines from India are likely to become even more popular in this country as Pakistan's Ministry of Health seeks a 6 to 10 percent increase in drug prices due to various economic factors such as the devalued Pakistani currency and repeated rises in energy costs.

As it is, many medicines are already being sold at higher prices in Pakistan compared to other South Asian countries.

According to a study conducted by the Consumers International Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, the prices of 17 out of 21 commonly consumed drugs are higher in Pakistan than in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The Pakistani government has tried to address this by allowing the import of drugs from China, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Poland and Yugoslavia. But health activists say the tactic has failed to work because of what they believe to be collusion between the MNCs, health professionals and government functionaries.

Zafar Mirza of the non-governmental organization Association of Rational Medication even hints of possible irregularities in the registration of medicines. He notes, for instance, that while the World Health Organization itself has a list of 270 drugs covering treatment of various ailments, Pakistan has more than 27,000 registered medicines.

Mirza also points out that while the registration of a drug takes some two years in the United Kingdom and the United States, Pakistan's Drug Registration Board (DRB) "has been registering roughly eight drugs on every working day during the last few years".

Meanwhile, some quarters have raised concerns regarding the safety of medicines from India. But one official of the Federal Drug Quality Control Board in Islamabad has said that laboratory tests conducted on samples of the smuggled drugs revealed most of them as safe.

Pharmacist Malik Akhtar Khan says one way of easing such worries is to simply register the Indian medicines, since this would mean these would have to pass through the regular government controls.

"When the need arose, Pakistan imported sugar from India," he says. "Why can't the government go for Indian drugs so that people can have access to cheaper drugs
اُمید صبØ: Comparison of Medicine Prices in Pakistan & India

Yes this is true.. Even my company Wockhardt exports medicine to Pakistan. I may come up few brand names on monday.. By the way lucky u misspelled names of few drugs.. Correct ones are follows
aspirin, Amoxicillin + Clavulanic acid, Ampicillin, Co-trimaxazole, Laxotanil, Ciprofloxine, Ranitidin, Famotidine and Cemetidine (Last three are proton pump inhibitors, commonly known as antacids)

regards

 

[manojb]

Indian invasion ok pak. First it was indian actors in pak ads . Now indian medicies. Good news is it is helping poor. Bad news is it is illegal.

 

[drunken-monke]

Indian pharmaceuticals are cheaper because they use inferior formulations, have lower purities or may even be counterfeit. I suggest no one that values their life to buy Indian medication.

You are absolutly wrong. you have no Idea of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Products.

Now read carefully,

Pakistan and India are the countries where the market is termed as non-regulated, I know this becoz I work for US and EU market products. There is no mandatory inclusion of Related Substances (impurities profiling and does not require working standards of API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient). The FDA of both government are not stringent for analytical method. Ultra violet spectrophotometer analysis is sufficient as far as ROW (India and Rest of the world) market. In US, EU, Japanese market analysis by HPLC (High performance Liquid Chromatography), GC (Gas Chomatography), Karl fischer moisture determonation, LCMS, NMR analysis is compulsory. This add huge cost for manufacturing.
If 1 rupee is manufacturing cast of 1 tablet then 100000 tablets can be manufactured in Rupees 100000, but the analysis cost adds up to rupees25000 more in finished product analysis, Raw material, API, packing material, Inprocess product analysis.

For regulated market you have to use DMF grade material and from approved vendor (approval from USFDA or MHRA) which build up cost twice or thrice. In a regulated market we have to file a product for launch, and whole process from development till launch take approx 3.5 yrs for US market and 4.5 to 5 yrs for EU market.

There are so many factors which contributes to the cost of product. For the people of Subcontinent, its better to have cheap medicine, we can not afford to have such a expensive medicines. the cost of same product is 10-15 times more in a regulated market and even more if the product is protected by Patent.

An by the way You said Indian medicines have impurities, I will say yes they have, becoz the raw material which is been utilized in manufacturing has them in a certain limit. And belive me majority of raw materials such as HPMC, Povidone, Many APIs, HPC, coloring agents ,silicon dioxide, magnesium stearate and dies are imported from China. You might be knowing that China's Bulk drug manufacturing is highest in the world and they sell it at cheapest cost. they dont even support for the Certificate of Analysis (COA) after delivery, they are really unreliable. Though few are good. And for your kind information, Indian firms share 21-24% generic market in US and EU which is very stringent and India has max shares amongst all after USA. (major generic player is Teva Pharma of Israel).
Cost and quality of product can be altered as per the pharmacy acts of the perticular country and as per the specifications of Pharmacopoeia of that country.

If I keep on typing continuously, then it would take more than 48 hrs conclude. I hope I was able to explain why Indian Medicines are cheap compared to western and how they are good for Pakistan.

PS: My organization Wockhardt has its product exported to Pakistan as well

regards

 

[drunken-monke]

No doubt, India is the undisputed "Fake drugs super power" on the planet. China is far behind.
Check this out, courtesy of Molawchai:

Fake drugs a bitter pill for India

NEW DELHI - Two recent reports by international health organizations have highlighted the disquieting magnitude of the counterfeit drugs market in India.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reckons that 75% of the world's total supply of fake drugs can be traced to India. The World Health Organization (WHO) pegs the figure at 35%.

Between 10 and 30% of all pharmaceuticals in developing countries are counterfeit, according to the 2006 WHO figures cited in the OECD report, which estimates that India is the biggest culprit in the spurious drugs market though other countries such as Egypt (7%) and China (6%) contribute to this menace.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/78453-fake-drugs-big-business-india.html

My profession dont give a Sh!t to this.. We do practice our profession with utmost professionalism..

Also some one from china in other thread called me a medicine seller when I wrote that I am a Formulation and development scientist. Search my name "Shrikant Parwate", I have published my research papers in USA as well, let alone many in India.

regards

 

[blackops]

Not surprised have seen 100's of pakistanis here in bombay hospital comming for medications yet they hate us

 

[drunken-monke]

Sorry I don't believe blogs over OECD statistics.

You don't seem very knowledgable about India's place in the pharmaceutical industry. India contributes at most, raw materials and low level precursors, less often advanced precursors, and much less frequently the active ingredient or formulated product and almost never a new chemical entity. India's ability to carry out drug discovery and research is extremely low. Developed countries do not even dare source their APIs from India very often due to purity issues. In pharmaceuticals as in everything else, India is an exporter of raw materials and importer of finished goods.

China is the biggest manufacturer of old blockbuster molecules, they have highest Bulk drug production which has very poor impurity profiling and very sad API partical size and very very bad support after the consignment delivery. Indeed Chinese are ridiculing Indians rather than upraising their own standard.

If you could google a bit, please search how much is the market share of China in medicine In Regulated market of US, EU and Japan. By the way India has good share of total generics. See my other post for details.
regards

 

[drunken-monke]

there are some very good indian drugs manufactured which are sometimes better and cheaper than their western types. no harm in importing these medicines.

I sincierly thank for your appreciation about Indian medicine from the behalf of my entre Pharmaceutical community. Believe me, top management sources of mine company confirmed me that there are few gud projects in pipeline for Pakistan (Especially antibiotocs and anti glaucoma drugs. We are in process of launching anti parkinsonian agents in pakistan). Please keep your appreaciation coming from behalf of People of Pakistan.

regards

 

[drunken-monke]

for your information,
we have a really advanced pharmaceutical industry.

And the leading Pharma organizations are Ranbaxy (it started sometime around in 1920s), Dr. Reddy's Lab, Cipla (This company started in 1930s and owner is a Muslims.), Lupin, Sun Pharma, Wockhardt Ltd (my organization adn owned by Mr. Habil Khorakiwala), Arbindo Pharma, Alkem, USV, GSK india, Pfizer India, Novartis India, Ipca, Matrix Labs, Microlabs, Emcure (I did my postgraduate thesis in this organization), centaur pharma, Astrazenca India, Teva Pharma India, Johnson and Johnson India, Eli Lilly India, Nicolas Pyramal, alembic Pharma, SMS pahrma.. and the list of leading organization is long. Pharma buisness is around $30-40 billion per yr in Indian domestic market plus regulated market, that would make up tp $50 billion or more

regards

 

[drunken-monke]

India has separate units to produce fake drugs, all the output is exported to China. They cause verbal diarrhea and mental retardation.

We do not export API or finsihed products to China...

 

[Mo12]

I went to India 5 years ago to get my lazer eye sugery, would of cost me £5,000 if I did it in England!

 

[drunken-monke]

I went to India 5 years ago to get my lazer eye sugery, would of cost me £5,000 if I did it in England!

Dear Mo12,

We are discussing on medical products and not the medical services, both are entirely different sector but ultimately have a common goal..

regards

 

[SpArK]

Medicine sale was expected to climb after the successful marketing of zandu balm by munni Corporation.

 

[Mo12]

Dear Mo12,

We are discussing on medical products and not the medical services, both are entirely different sector but ultimately have a common goal..

regards

Any kind of Medical sense is increasing with Pakistan getting involved more and more. Not limited to pills only.

Regards