E-DRUG: banned importation of essential drugs
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dear E-druggers,
Developing countries sometimes want to protect national manufacturers, and ban the importation of certain essential drugs. In Ghana the importation of 14 drugs is banned. Below an example of Nigeria.
Questions:
What happened to prices of essential drugs whose importation was banned in Ghana and Nigeria?
Should the importation of drugs be banned to protect local production?
What is the right balance between protection of local manufacturing industry and the availability and affordability of essential drugs?
Are there other methods that could promote local manufacture without banning the importation?
The E-drug platform is open for discussion!
best regards,
Wilbert
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Wilbert Bannenberg, E-drug moderator
Email: wjb@planet.nl
The 1995-2004 E-drug archives are at http://www.essentialdrugs.org/edrug/
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http://www.nafdacnigeria.org/bannedsubstances.html
Banned Products: These are products which have been prohibited from importation into Nigeria by Federal Government and are therefore not accepted for registration or renewal of registration
Paracetamol tablets and syrups
Cotrimoxazole tablets and syrups
Metronidazole tablets and syrups
Chloroquine tablets and syrups
Haematinic formulations:
Ferrous sulphate and ferrous gluconate tablets
Folic acid
Vitamin B Complex tablets [except modified release formulations]
Multivitamin tablets, capsules and syrups [except special formulations]
Aspirin tablets [except modified formulations and soluble asprin
Magnesium trisilicate tablets and suspensions
Piperazine tablets and syrups
Levamisole tablets and syrups
Clotrimazole cream
Ampicillin/Cloxacillin combination capsules
Ointments - Penicillin / gentamycin
Pyrantel pamoate tablets and syrups
Intravenous fluids (Dextose, Normal Saline etc)
Disinfectants and Germicides
E-DRUG: banned importation of essential drugs (3)
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Dear Wilbert Bannenberg,
Protection of national manufacturers, by banning the importation of certain essential drugs, could also be an indication of self-sufficiency in simple formulation of certain drugs even though it does not fit into open market concept.
The same objective could be achieved through technical barriers (like modified / specialised or bioequivalent imported products will only be registered) for certain number of years until the domestic industries come up to required technical and financially competent level. This serves a multi-prong approach of protection and at the same time guiding domestic industries towards technical competency. This is a very well accepted technical barrier. This would favour high-tech and GMP compliant companies who if decide to market their product in the country would afford to do so only in high price benefiting the domestic industries operate in low priced / low-tech product. This has to be for certain number of years only by which all domestic companies would have to come to the technical specifications set for imported product. Or else it will kill innovation and also sound double standard not acceptable in pharmaceuticals in long term even though the trend exists in practice and continues to grow globally.
There are tariff measures also which is still permissible for LDCs. Concession in importation of components to domestic industries as compared to finished product would also protect domestic industries to a certain extent. This practice is very common in Nepal (1% for components and 5% for finished products). Likewise in bulk purchase, the financial regulation allows to negotiate with domestic industries even if their products are up by a max of 10% than the imported counterpart provided the technical standard meet with the predefined specifications.
Regarding the price of import-restricted EDs, it has to be guided by the indicative price determined by the competent authority based on local market practice, economy of scale (obtained through import restriction by allocating each product to a certain number of companies only who is GMP compliant on allocated product) and international indicator price. In absence of certain conditions (uplift in technical competency within protected period, GMP compliance, defined price range within which to operate, etc), the protection both tariff and technical based would sound aimless, temporary, unsustainable and harmful in the long run.
For example, in Nepal 90% of demand of paracetamol is met by one government company as a result of price fixation on Paracetamol and IV fluids some ten years ago. The price is still same and there is almost nil import and only a couple of industries undertake the formulation currently. There is no competitor for this product because of its scale of economy. So, this is another way of doing protection without banning the drug which sound very unfair from open perspective but has serve the purpose of access and protection.
However, any such restriction has to be time bound and with certain well thought out and defined purpose.
Hope these very personal thoughts would address the questions raised by Wilbert.
Balkrishna Khakurel
Senior Pharmacist
Ministry of Health, Kathmandu, Nepal
bkhakurel@yahoo.com