LAHORE: The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has directed the doctors from mentioning the advertised brand names of drugs while prescribing them to patients.
According to the official notification, the regulatory authority has directed all provincial healthcare departments to ensure medical practitioners prescribe medicines only with their generic names/salt.
In a letter written to provincial health departments, the authority mentioned that numerous complaints about prescription practices were received via Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit.
Citizens expressed concerns over brand-based prescriptions of medicines by doctors in government and private sectors. The malpractice puts patients under financial stress as branded medicines are much expensive than commonly available. Generic drugs are a chemical copy of the original brand and contain the same active ingredients but are cheaper and more readily available.
Let it be known that the Drug Act 1976, Section 7 clearly mentioned that “the Single-ingredient drugs shall be registered generally by their generic names while compound drugs shall be registered generally by their proprietary names”.
Meanwhile, several physicians did not know of medicines by their generic name and instead relied on brand names while writing prescriptions to patients. Therefore, the new restriction has forced them to approach pharmacists to learn the generic names.
