With the private medical sector to a large extent turning into a big profit-making business, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne has assured that prices of essential medicinal drugs would be significantly reduced in the coming weeks and months.

Addressing an event in his home base of Kalutara, Dr. Senaratne made the shocking claim that some trans-national and other pharmaceutical companies here were selling drugs here at staggering profits  ranging  from 200% to a crippling 2000%.

The Health Minister said legislation for the implementation of a national medicinal drugs policy based on the Senaka Bibile principles, had been unanimously passed by Parliament in March this year, after a delay if not dilly–dallying for about 10 years.

President Maithripala Sirisena, the Health Minister from 2010 to 2014, has charged that TNC agents here had given as much as Rs.1000 million to some political VVPs last year to delay or dilute the National Medicinal Drugs Policy. He assured that if elected on January 8, he would within months introduce legislation for the implementation of the National Medicinal Drugs Policy. True to his word, the legislation was unanimously approved by Parliament and the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) was set up in July to regulate and monitor the import and sale of medicinal drugs.

The thirteen-member NMRA -  headed by Prof. Laal Jayakody, Head of the Department of Pharmacology in the Colombo Medical Faculty - is now finalizing regulations which will be gazetted soon. Minister Senaratne said that with the gazetting of the regulations, the prices of medicinal drugs would be drastically reduced, with the maximum profit allowed being 85%. 

Health action groups including the People’s Movement for the Rights of Patients (PMRP) say that the major role for the NMRA would be to test thousands of varieties of drugs - some analysts say as many as 15,000 – being imported now. During the time when Prof. Bibile was the Chairman of the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation from 1971 to 1976, Sri Lanka obtained expertise and aid from Japan and Norway to test the quality of the drugs. Pharmacy experts from those countries helped to set up the National Drugs Quality Assurance Laboratory (NDQAL) and trained a large number of our pharmacists. 
But the angry TNCs got the help of the United States Government to force Sri Lanka to drop the Bibile policies. A heartbroken Prof. Bibile went away to work in Guyana, where he died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 55.

The new National Government faces a battle against even more powerful pharmaceutical TNCs in implementing the Bibile policies. But we hope the NMRA would get help from Japan or Norway to test the quality of all imported drugs, reduce the number and the prices, and thereby restore a health service where the wellbeing of the patients is given priority.  

In terms of the new policy, the NMRA is expected to cancel the registration of thousand of non-essential drugs being imported under highly expensive brand names. With the number being reduced to about thousand varities of essential drugs, well trained pharmacists would be able to test these drugs on the basis of five factors -- quality, efficacy, safety, the cost of the drug and the need for it. When this is done, it is hoped that all Sri Lankans would have access to quality drugs at affordable prices.

With Minister Senaratne being in-charge of nutrition also, he needs to be well advised by qualified people-friendly nutritionists. Earlier this month, President Sirisena launched a national campaign for Sri Lanka to produce its own nutritious food within three years without depending on imported junk foods or processed rubbish. For centuries Sri Lanka has been blessed with hundreds of varieties of vegetables and fruits to provide all the nutrition we need and we should not waste money on buying what TNCs describe as nutro-ceuticals. Over the past few decades, millions of our people have been misled to buy imported vitamin tablets which are processed and sometimes artificial. An intensive education campaign needs to be conducted especially in schools to make the children and parents aware that all the nutrition we need is available in Sri Lanka and we do not need TNCs for such programmes