Chamber Of Pharmacy Appeals To FDA To Reduce Registration Fee For Pharma Products

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Chamber of Pharmacy Ghana, Mr. Harrison Kofi Abutiate, has called on the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to reduce the registration fees for locally made pharmaceutical products.

According to him, the registration fees for some medicines were as high as $3,600, while inspection fees sometimes cost $20,000, making Ghana one of the most expensive countries in Africa to operate a pharmaceutical business.

At a seminar on taxation in Accra, Mr. Abutiate explained that the effects of the high registration fees were the inability to present new products for registration and evading re-registration when the product’s permit periods expired.

He also identified the shortage of drugs on the market, the proliferation of unsolicited, unregistered, fake or substandard products through the country’s porous borders and the low compliance level in the industry as the effects of the high cost of registration fees in Ghana.