KARACHI: The manufacturing of Panadol Tablets, Panadol Extra Tablets and Children’s Panadol Liquid Range have all been suspended in Pakistan by the GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (GSKCH) citing government’s failure to adjust selling price keeping in view the increase in cost of raw material.
The move came after the company sent “several letters to various government stakeholders regarding the critical issue of extraordinary and rapid increase in paracetamol (raw material) prices in Pakistan.”
The GSKCH informed the Pakistan Stock Exchange that it declared force majeure, a clause that is included in contracts to remove liability for unforeseeable and unavoidable catastrophes that interrupt the expected course of events and prevent participants from fulfilling obligations, thus halting the production of Panadol tablets and Liquid range.
The company said it had become unsustainable to produce the over-the-counter medicine on negative margins.
In a regulatory filing to the Stock Exchange, GSKCH said “despite exhaustive efforts of the company to mitigate this matter through dialogue, the situation is now beyond our control.”
It said the company had repeatedly appealed to the federal government to approve the “adjustments to the selling price” of the Panadol range of products amid an “extraordinary and rapid” increase in the cost of raw material.
It has been learnt that GSK Pakistan was manufacturing Panadol at a loss for the past several months, which was no longer possible to sustain, and if the government approved the new price, the company was willing to resume the manufacturing process.
