ISLAMABAD: GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Consumer Healthcare Pakistan announced on Friday to discontinue producing all Panadol medicines due to significant financial losses, and Pakistan is expected to experience a grave medical crisis.
GSK further declared the increase in the price of basic paracetamol ingredients as the major push toward suspending Panadol production.
GlaxoSmithKline informed investors on Friday that it had a net loss of Rs345.2 million for the quarter ending in September, as opposed to a net profit of Rs363.9m for the same time the previous year.
CEO of GSK Consumer Healthcare Pakistan, Farhan Haroon, wrote in a letter to PM’s Principal Secretary Syed Tauqir Shah, “Due to these challenges, manufacturing of Panadol range on negative margins is unsustainable and despite exhaustive efforts of the company to mitigate the issue through dialogue, the situation is now beyond our control, compelling us to declare force majeure.”
“We received the cabinet’s consent in the DPC of DRAP, held on January 12, 2022, as proposed by the DPC. However, media reports claim that the rejection came about after a protracted delay and without the company being informed of the reason(s) for it, Farhan Haroon said.
The pharmaceutical companies are stuck in an inevitable loop where they are unable to produce several vital medications, including different brands of oral and injectable paracetamol, anti-psychotics, and anticonvulsants cause of high production costs and low profiting on the other side, the government is unwilling to raise the cost of medications.
The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) claims that the cost of medicines has increased by 38% as a result of rising raw material costs, the depreciation of the rupee, rising utility costs, and transportation costs. They are calling for an immediate 40% increase in medicine prices overall.
