Eighteen out of the 62 pharmaceutical companies reported by a Jatiya Sangsad panel last year as producers of sub-standard drugs have allegedly been continuing with the malpractice.
The parliamentary standing committee on health ministry at its meeting on Wednesday came to know that nine of the pharmaceuticals were still producing sub-standard medicines taking advantage of stay orders issued by the High Court on writ petitions filed by them.
The companies are Parmik Laboratories Limited, Spark Pharma Limited, Shamsul Alamin Pharma Limited, Tropical Pharma Limited, Union Pharma Limited, Rasa Pharma Limited, Paradise Pharma Limited, Oasis PJS Pharma Limited, and Indo-Bangla Pharma Limited.
The remaining nine pharmaceuticals are doing the same by taking permission from the drug administration, the JS watchdog was informed.
The companies are Wester Pharmaceuticals Limited, FNF Pharma Limited, Modern Pharma Limited, Prime Pharma Limited, Silco Pharma Limited, Sintho Pharma Limited, Greenland Pharma Limited, Millat Pharma Limited, and Momtaz Pharma Limited.
The JS committee at the meeting recommended the health ministry to take necessary measures for vacating the writ petitions filed by the first group of nine pharmaceuticals in consultation with the attorney general and for withdrawing the drug administration’s permission given to the second group.
The committee said the first group of companies concealed information while filing the writ petitions.
Health minister AFM Ruhal Haque, state minister Mujibur Rahman Fakir, M Amanuallah, Nazmul Hasan, Murad Hasan, and ZIM Mostofa Ali attended the meeting presided over by committee chairman Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim.
‘We have expressed our anger as the poor-standard companies have been marketing their products using the writ petitions as a shield. They have been posing threat to the public health,’ Sheikh Selim told newspersons after the meeting at the parliament building.
‘We have suggested that the ministry should vacate the writ petitions in consultation with the attorney general,’ he said and accused the drug administration of flouting recommendations of the JS watchdog.
The standing committee formed a one-member sub-committee headed by Nazmul Hasan in 2009 to detect pharmaceutical companies that produced substandard drugs and the sub-committee in its report filed in 2012 listed 62 such companies. The JS standing committee then suggested that the government should cancel licences of the companies and remove their products from the market.