Govt may no longer have to import Norvasc

Business Mirror - Nov. 23, 2006

By Jennifer A. Ng
Reporter

STATE-run Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) on Wednesday said it may no longer have to import the antihypertension drug Norvasc by Pfizer with the expected availability of a locally produced medicine with the same efficacy.
           
PITC, an attached agency of the Trade department tasked to facilitate the government’s importation needs, disclosed that Therapharma, a unit of the home-grown United Laboratories Inc.’s, has produced the antihypertension drug Amvasc.
           
Roberto Pagdanganan, PITC president, admitted that with the availability of the local hypertension drug, the Philippines may no longer have to import Norvasc, which has been the cause of a lawsuit between PITC and Pfizer.
           
US-based Pfizer owns the patent to Norvasc which will expire in June next year. The PITC, however, imported some 40 tablets of the medicine from Pakistan, prompting the company to file charges against the PITC for alleged patent infringement.
           
PITC, however, maintained that the importation of the tablets was solely for analyzing whether the ingredients of the medicine made by US-based Pfizer and the ones being sold by its unit Parke-Davis in Pakistan are the same.
           
“Norvasc sells at only P10 per 5-milligram tablet in Pakistan, but the one sold here retails at P44.75, so we wanted to find out if they have the same ingredients [even as] the imported ones are much cheaper,” said Pagdanganan.