The Cabinet has given final approval to the draft Drug Act-2022, which provides life imprisonment for manufacturing adulterated and fake medicines.
The draft law was approved in the regular meeting of the Cabinet presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Prime Minister's Office on Monday.
Later, Cabinet Secretary Md Mahbub Hossain held a press briefing in the Cabinet meeting room to announce the decision of the meeting.
He said, in this new law, if any drug is harmful, it is immediately cancelled from the drug market. According to the law, the guidelines of WHO should be followed in all matters in the production of medicines.
The secretary said: “The provision of life imprisonment has been kept. And manufacturing medicine from a factory without registration will result in a fine of Tk10 lakh and 10 years imprisonment.”
The cabinet secretary also said that the government will determine the price of some medicines in the proposed law.
He further said: “Antibiotics cannot be sold without a prescription from a registered doctor. A penalty of Tk20,000 has been imposed if antibiotics are sold without a license from a shop.”
The new law also added the word “cosmetics” to “drugs”. The Act is henceforth known as “Drugs and Cosmetics Act-2022”.