Overview
- The federal cabinet, which signed off Monday, cleared price tags for 35 life‑saving medicines, with pricing for about 45 more expected soon and an official notice anticipated this week according to industry sources.
- Officials said the delays since 2024 kept newly registered essential drugs off shelves and pushed many patients to skip treatment or buy costly, unsafe medicines through informal sellers.
- The list spans cancer and transplant treatments, cardiovascular drugs, and vaccines for typhoid, polio, and pneumococcal disease, plus factor VIII for bleeding disorders, rabies immunoglobulin, and semaglutide for diabetes.
- DRAP said it has asked the telecom regulator to block websites and social pages that sell medicines illegally to reduce parallel markets and steer buyers back to regulated supply.
- In Pakistan, a drug can be registered yet still unavailable because controlled medicines need a government price notice before legal sale, so the cabinet step is expected to reopen formal supply chains.