The Health Ministry is planning on introducing the Drug Act 2014, which will reportedly allow the country’s drug administration to carry out mobile court drives and enforce updated rules and regulations for the pharmaceutical industry.
A committee of drug specialists, headed by Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) chief Maj Gen Jahangir Hossain Mollick, recently finalised the draft of the act and submitted it to the Health Ministry.
Sources at the ministry said it would now seek opinions from other ministries and review the draft before submitting it to the cabinet.
Maj Gen Mollick, director general of the DGDA, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that the draft act has already been submitted to the ministry to make a “uniform” act in order to ensure smooth operations in the pharmaceutical industry.
The fast-growing pharmaceutical industry has long been running on the 74-year-old Drug Act 1940, which had been subsequently followed up with the drug rules of 1945 and 1946, drug control ordinance of 1982 and drug policy of 2006, the DGDA chief said.
He added that it was high time to introduce an updated drug act as the previous rules and ordinances were ineffective in contemporary times.
Asked how much time will be needed to introduce the bill, Maj Gen Mollick said the issue would now depend completely on the Health Ministry as the ball was currently in their court after the DGDA had done its duty.
Meanwhile, seeking anonymity, a key committee member who was involved with the preparation of draft act told the Dhaka Tribune that pharmacovigilance or drug safety of the market has been made compulsory in the proposed act, while the committee has also recommended bioequivalence test of the existing drugs.
The committee member added the proposed act would allow the DGDA to officially conduct mobile courts – an authority that is not available under the existing act.
According to the DGDA, 653 mobile court drives during 2013 managed to seize fake, adulterated, smuggled, and date-expired drugs worth around Tk10 crore. The mobile courts also handed jail sentences to over 100 people, and fined them more than Tk2 crore.
When asked about the unscrupulous drugs manufacturers, DGDA Director Selim Barami claimed that the drug administration was trying its best to conduct mobile court drives and ensure safe medicine for people.
According to annual reports of DGDA, which is the licensing and controlling authority of the pharmaceutical market, a total of 267 allopathic pharmaceutical companies have been producing raw materials and finished drug worth Tk12,565 crore each year. Moreover 268 unani, 204 ayurvedic, 79 homeopathic and 26 herbal companies have also been producing drugs worth Tk700 crore. There are currently 103,991 registered pharmacies across the country.
