Minister Commits to Reducing Waiting Time for Registration of Drugs

Minister of Health, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, has committed to putting measures in place to ensure members of the pharmaceutical industry face a shorter waiting time for the registration of drugs.

He said the process is being manually done by limited personnel who complete up to 400 applications per year, resulting in a wait time of several months.

“We have to fix that…that’s our contribution to the delivery of good health care to the marketplace. I am committing to you that we are going to do something about that…to hasten that process and remove the long wait,” he said.

Dr. Tufton was speaking at a ‘Meet the Minister’ luncheon forum, hosted by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, at the Knutsford Court hotel, on April 19.

The Minister further highlighted the value of the Government forming partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry to enable increased efficiency and create solutions for issues faced by the stakeholders.

To that end, Dr. Tufton said the Ministry has agreed to establish an advisory group or a monitoring committee to assess the pace of registration and to identify and solve areas of difficulty. He noted that this should be done over the course of the next few weeks.

“We all have a critical role to play…I see my role as bringing the parties together, bringing the stakeholders together and helping them to appreciate their role and how that role interfaces with other critical stakeholders,” he said.

There are some 400 pharmacies in Jamaica, which employ over 10,000 persons.