Experts for strict monitoring on fixing medicine price

Health experts, scholars and officials today urged the authorities concerned to strengthen their monitoring on the entire pharmaceutical sector to ensure reasonable prices of medicine.

The government should exercise its regulatory power for fixing fair price of medicines to ensure equal access to medicines, they told the third CPD anniversary lecture on "Health and Global Trade Regime: Is it affecting equal access to medicines?" in a city hotel.

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a civil society think-tank, organized the lecture aiming to highlight current situation on global trading regime concerning medicines and pharmaceutical products and how the attendant challenges could be appropriately addressed through concrete actions.

Chairman of CPD Prof Rehman Sobhan Executive Director of CPD Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow of CPD Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Founder of Gonoshastha Kendra Prof Zafar Ullah Chowdhury, Chairman of Universal Medical College Hospital Priti Chakraborty, heads of different government agencies, teachers and researchers and officials of different pharmaceutical companies, among others, addressed the programme.

Prof Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, vice-chair of the UN Committee for Development Policy, made a presentation on Health and Global Trade Regime at the programme.

Other speakers said research works should be increased among universities, pharmaceutical companies and international organizations to invent new medicines to address innovation gaps in the health sector.

With rapidly rising prices of medicines and treatment across the world, the issue affects not only poor people and poor countries, but also it affects people in high-income countries, they added.

In her presentation, Prof Sakiko said millions lack access to medicine in developing countries escalating prices of branded medicines in developed countries and developing countries. Gaps in innovation and access to medicines and treatments continue to remain one of critical challenges for humanity in the 21st century, she added.