Not a single medicinal drug withdrawn: Rajitha

Not a single essential medicinal drug has been removed from the market other than to replace those that have remained for long periods on pharmacy shelves with new and better drugs, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said yesterday.

He said the global drug trade was changing rapidly with new and better drugs replacing older versions.

"When a new drug arrives in the market it is natural for older drug to lose its demand and therefore has to be replaced with the new drugs which is always better than the old one because it comes to the market after clinical and field studies. As such it is malicious and stupid to say that certains drug are not available. If a certain brand of drug is not available then there are many others substitutes to fill the void," the minister said.

He said the government had reduced the prices of 73 essential drugs in the past few months thus halving the monthly drug bill of those suffering from diabetes, heart ailments, gastritis and kidney ailments.

National Medicinal Drug Regulatory Authority (NMRA) Chairman Prof. Asitha De Silva said the media reports on drug shortages were wrong and journalists must base their reports not on hearsay but on facts and figures and must not write articles just because some one wants them written.

“The local medicinal drug market is worth some Rs.145 billion. The government reduced the prices of 73 essential drugs which is a huge relief to millions of patients. We did it on the instructions of the World Health Organization (WHO). The misleading and malicious canard serves only drug companies, not patients,” he said.

Prof. De Silva said not a single essential drug was been removed from pharmacies without a better substitute replacing it and neither had a single drug importer or distributor informed the NMRA about the withdrawal of medicinal drugs from the market as alleged by the media.

All Ceylon private Pharmacies Association Chairman Chandika Gankanda said the price reduction on medicinal drugs was a huge benefit to patients but a loss to pharmacies.

“Drugs are taken off the shelves when they reach their use-by-dates and there is no demand for them. It is sad to see that drug mafia giving a different interpretation to this normal procedure,” he said. (Sandun A Jayasekera)