Demands Conceded.

After months of protests, shortages and talks with producers, the government has finally allowed a 25 percent increase in paracetamol prices. This is bound to ease tensions between the pharmaceutical industry, the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) and the health ministry. At the same time, it will ensure that access to such an integral drug remains consistent in the market. However, we must question the precedent set through using hoarding and a halt in production as a bargaining tool.

The health ministry's decision to accept the demands put forth by pharmaceutical companies, particularly GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Pakistan Ltd, came after paracetamol disappeared from the market entirely. A generic medicine like this is needed for reducing pain, fever and managing symptoms of other diseases, and its disappearance undoubtedly created more hardships for patients across the country.

While the government was cracking down on why people were suffering needlessly and investigated the disappearance of the drug, pharmaceutical companies were reportedly hoarding produced medicines, halting production and voicing grievances according to which their cost of production superseded their income. They demanded an increase in prices that would keep in mind global trends and be reflective of the rates of inflation, increased cost of importing, manufacturing and trade tariffs. But the government refused, until...