Nepal Drug Limited has stopped the production of Cetamol and Jeevan Jal for the past one and a half months.
The government-owned Drug Limited has stopped the production of drugs after the Ministry of Health did not proceed with the drug procurement process. Despite increasing production by purchasing a large amount of raw materials, various government agencies did not purchase the drugs, so the sale in the market stopped, so the production had to be stopped, said Kailash Kumar Paneru, General Manager of Drug Limited.
According to him, the Limited currently has a stock of drugs worth Rs 1.5 crore. Of which Cetamol and Jeevan Jal are the most. On Chaitra 20, 2079, the government decided to provide Rs 240 million to the Nepal Drug Limited to produce 20 types of medicines.
A committee formed under the coordination of the then Chief Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi had sent the Nepal Drug Limited’s reform plan to the Ministry of Health, Industry and Finance and had decided to implement it by coordinating it with the three ministries.
On that basis, the Limited has increased its medicine production by 10 percent by working in two phases, but General Manager Paneru said that the amount has not yet been received. He said that even though the production of medicines has been increased by 10 percent, it has not been possible to produce as much medicine as last year.
General Manager Paneru said, “Last year, Nepal Medicine Limited sent medicines worth Rs 1.5 million to the Health Department. We are producing medicines by increasing the amount of medicines that were being sent to other provincial government-run medicine supply centers by 10 percent. But this time, we have brought forward the issue of signing an MoU with the Ministry of Health and accordingly, we have made federal hospitals, provincial hospitals and health institutions work in two shifts so that correspondence is sent and more medicines are sold. That has increased production. But the medicines have not been sold as much as last year. The Health Department did not buy them and the provincial supply centers did not buy them either, so we have stopped the production of Citamotol and Jeevan Jal.”
Paneru said that the Medicine Limited is heading towards a crisis due to the unwilling attitude of the Ministry of Health. Although the Chief Secretary-level committee formed on Chaitra 20, 2079 BS recommended an MoU between the Ministry of Health and the Limited regarding the purchase of medicines, the process has not been able to move forward yet. General Manager Paneru complained that despite repeatedly asking the Prime Minister, the Minister of Industry and the Health Secretary for time, they were ignored.
He said that despite the files being sent back and forth from the Health Department to the Ministry of Health and from the Ministry of Health to the Health Department, no conclusion has been reached. He said that if the ministry starts the drug procurement process by signing an MOU, drug production can start immediately.
He added, “The Chief Secretary-level committee formed by the government on Chaitra 20, 2079 had said that the Limited should sign an MOU with the Ministry of Health. We had already forwarded that work. The file is circulating from the Health Department to the Ministry of Health and from the Ministry of Health to the Health Department. The committee formed in the Ministry of Health has also been finalized, but it is still sitting in the Ministry. We are waiting for that. We are following that.”
General Manager Paneru has alleged that the MOU process has not progressed due to the personal interests of some employees of the Department of Health Services. Currently, the Provincial Supply Centers of all seven provinces, Bir Hospital, Civil Hospital, Gangalal Heart Center, Teku Hospital, Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital, Organ Transplant Center and 12 municipalities are purchasing drugs from the Limited. But in the event of an MoU between the Ministry of Health and the Limited, all government hospitals and local level health branches will purchase medicines from the Limited.
The Limited’s plan to produce more medicines is stalled due to the Ministry of Health
The government-owned pharmaceutical manufacturer Nepal Drug Limited is moving ahead with a plan to expand the production of new types of medicines. But due to lack of necessary government support and lack of interest from the Ministry of Health, this plan has been stalled.
According to General Manager Paneru, the Limited was preparing to produce medicines for cholesterol, diabetes (sugar) and high blood pressure (pressure). However, since the market for the products Cytomol and Jeevan Jal is not assured, it is preparing to withdraw.
The Limited has repeatedly requested the Ministry of Health to sign an MoU (memorandum of understanding) for the sale of its medicines in government hospitals and health institutions. However, as the ministry has been delaying the agreement process, both the organization’s production and expansion plans are in a state of limbo.
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