Manila Standard – Saturday, February 16, 2008

A consumer group has urged the Philippine International Trading Corp. and the Bureau of Food and Drug not to enter into settlement with Pfizer which sued them for allowing into the country cheaper versions of Norvasc, an anti-hypertension drug, from Pakistan in 2005.

Edeliza Hernandez, co-convenor of Cut the Cost, Cut the Pain Network (3CPNet), said a settlement with Pfizer will reward its bullying tactics and shortchanges the consumers of essential medicines.

She also said settlement of the case will pave the way for other harassment acts that the pharmaceutical companies will employ if their profit interests are endangered by public health interests.

Pfizer filed the lawsuit against PITC and BFAD for alleged violating of its patent rights in the Philippines when it imported cheaper versions of Norvasc from Pakistan.

The government issued a regulatory approval to allow the entry of a cheaper version of Norvasc that costs almost 90 percent less.

Norvasc is a maintenance medicine that has to be taken once a day for the rest of the patient’s life.

When PITC bought Norvasc in Pakistan, Pfizer sells the same brand locally at P44.75 for every 5-mg tablet and P74.50 for a 10-mg tablet.
The same product was reportedly sold by Pfizer in India under the brand name Amlogard at the peso equivalent of P6 per 5-mg tablet and P9 per 10-mg tablet

“Pfizer has no legal and moral grounds to stand on this case,” stressed Hernandez as the pre-trial of the case resumed Thursday at the Makati Regional Trial Court.

Members of the consumer group attended the pre-trial hearing and expressed their support to the government agencies as the case dragged on for the past two years, even surpassing the expiration of Pfizer’s patent on Norvasc last June 2007.

“The government has rightly upheld public health and Pfizer has no business suing the BFAD and PITC,” said Hernandez.

She recalled that on July 14, 2000, former Health Secretary Alberto Romualdez Jr. issued Administrative Order 85 on the premise that the Philippines has one of the highest drug prices in the Asean region.

The order cited the key strategy to lower drug prices is the importation of finished drug products from other countries where these drugs are cheaper than in the Philippines, subject to registration of these drugs with the BFAD prior to sale in the market.
Macon Ramos Araneta