Kurdistan passes restrictions on shady pharmaceutical deals

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Tuesday put into effect new regulations on the region’s pharmaceutical industry after sales of counterfeit drugs and claims of shady deals between doctors and sales companies have raised concerns among the local population.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Tuesday put into effect new regulations on the region’s pharmaceutical industry after sales of counterfeit drugs and claims of shady deals between doctors and sales companies have raised concerns among the local population.

The new directives were cataloged in five documents signed by regional Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.

"Any [illicit] deal in any manner or under any justification between doctors and pharmacists or salespersons of pharmaceutical companies on medicinal goods is prohibited," reads one of the rules.

Backroom agreements between drug companies and doctors or hospitals are nothing new on the world stage. For decades, they have led to legislation aimed at curbing them across Europe and the US, where a current opioid addiction and overdose crisis is widely blamed on years of industry-inspired overprescription of narcotic pain medication.

In recent years, the growing prevalence of such arrangements in the Kurdistan Region has become common knowledge for students studying in pharmaceutical schools, and in turn, the public at large. Local media reports suggest commonplace deals set up by companies incentivizing doctors to prescribe for their patients either excessive amounts of medication or of drugs unrelated to the diagnosed illness, done to increase sales and create larger returns for businesses engaging in the activity.

"If any person [is caught] purchasing, selling, or creating medicinal products or chemical apparatus that are counterfeit, then the Ministry of Health and its relevant directorates will file lawsuits against them in the appropriate investigative court," another point states.

In August, authorities arrested over a dozen people and closed down multiple stores that, after a special KRG committee investigated the matter, were found to have been selling imitation brands of medicine and/or without proper licenses.

According to another regulation, "Pharmacists are not allowed to sell any drugs without the prescription of a [licensed] medical doctor," with a clause adding "except for drugs approved by the Kurdistan Pharmacists' Syndicate in coordination with the Ministry of Health."

Also, it stated, "Prescriptions can be filled only once."

The government has also demanded the proper storage of medications to preserve their peak effectiveness.

Editing by John J. Catherine