Daily Tribune – September 10, 2007

The Senate committee on trade and commerce, together with the Senate committee on health and demography, will begin hearings today on measures that seek to lower the prices of medicines in the country.

“We will hold weekly hearings until these measures are enacted into law,” Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, chairman of the trade committee, said.

Roxas, a long-time advocate of quality, affordable medicines especially for the poor, pointed to huge discrepancies in local prices of drugs to those abroad, in particular patented drugs for chronic lifestyle diseases that affect Filipinos regardless of social status.

Roxas said the joint committee hearings will establish the problem of high drug prices, the roots of this problem, what the government has done to address this, and what more can be done through legislative and administrative means.

Among the resource persons and agencies invited to the hearings are the Departments of Health and Trade, generic drug group Philippine Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association of the Philippines, worldwide giant drug company Pfizer, Mercury Drug, the World Health Organization, Oxfam and former Cabinet members. Under the agreement, the PITC commissioned Healthwatch to be the lead convenor of all stakeholders, such as other nongovernmental organizations, doctors, suppliers and the media, that are involved in PITC Pharma’s information dissemination campaign.

“I urge everyone to unite in this single cause to ease the burden of our countrymen who are in dire need of quality, affordable medicines,” Roxas said.

Roxas’ Senate Bill 101 seeks to amend the Intellectual Property Code to increase competition and bring in lower-priced medicines, strengthen the local generics industry and provide ample muscle to the government in times when public health is at stake.

The bill seeks to adopt the “international exhaustion” doctrine in order to allow the parallel importation of more affordable medicines from abroad.

It also seeks to adopt the “early working” doctrine to allow generics manufacturers to begin experimentation, production and registration of drugs prior to expiry of patents. The bill also prevents patent holders from extending their patents on frivolous grounds such as the discovery of a “new use” of the patented drug. Correct misconception

Lastly, the bill grants the government discretion in use of patents when public health is at stake, and provides a framework for government use and compulsory licensing, with adequate compensation to the patent holder.

The bill is virtually the same as which the President had certified as urgent, and which had been passed by the Senate, during the 13th Congress. PNA

Meanwhile, a senior executive of the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) has said some pharmaceutical companies have expressed their support for the government’s cheaper medicines program through the Botika ng Bayan and Botika ng Barnagay.

Undersecretary Teddie Elson Rivera, PITC chief operating officer, said it was a challenge explaining to companies the rationale behind the cheaper medicines program.

“But we were able to make them understand that we are not a competitor,” Rivera said.

He said companies like Abbot, GlaxoWellcome, InterPhil Laboratories Inc., United Laboratories and Bayer, among others, have been supportive of the program.

These companies supply medicines for the Botika ng Bayan branches.  

Rivera said multinational pharmaceutical companies get the largest share of the P107-billion pharmaceutical market although only 30 percent of the Filipinos have access to medicine.  

”We make them understand that our objective is not to enter their market but to serve the unserved. If we can serve another 30 or 40 percent of the 70 percent who are not served, that is good enough” he said.  

Rivera said the Botika ng Bayan only sell essential medicines such as those for hypertension and diabetes.  

“Each Botika ng Bayan outlet will distribute a full range of branded and generic, over-the-counter and prescription medicines and home remedies at half the price,” he said.  

The program also helped lower the increase of medicine prices, Rivera said.  

Based on the 2006 Philippine pharmaceutical market performance study of the International Marketing Systems (IMS) group, the average 12 percent medicine price increase went down to five to seven percent due to the seven percent usage of generic medicines, he added.  

In the same study, he noted that local pharmaceutical companies have posted higher sales growth than the multinational companies due to the increasing use of generic medicines.  

”People are now aware that quality medicines need not be expensive,” he said.  

The PITC is a government-owned international trading company with over thirty years experience in the export, import and marketing of a wide range of commodities, industrial products and consumer goods.

Among its initiatives is the Botika ng Bayan, which seeks to expand the marketing and distribution network for high quality yet low cost medicines to poor Filipinos.  

It is also a partnership program with the private sector, Rivera said.

To make affordable medicines available and accessible to all Filipinos, he said, the PITC would like the Botika ng Bayan and Botika ng Barangay branches to reach 4,000 and 24,500, respectively, by the year 2010.  

Currently, there are 1,500 Botika ng Bayan and 11,000 Botika ng Barangay branches all over the country.  

PITC also signed on Thursday a memorandum of agreement with Healthwatch, which signified the role of the two agencies in consolidating and integrating all non-government organizations and stakeholders, such as Drugstores Association of the Philippines, to support of the quality and affordable medicine program.