HEALTH Secretary Francisco Duque III assured the public on Monday that the prices of all 21 essential medicines earlier identified by the Department of Health (DOH) will be halved by August 15.
Duque said in a Palace news briefing that pharmaceutical companies have agreed to voluntarily reduce by 50 percent the prices of 14 to 15 of the 21 essential drugs, while proposed only a 30-percent to 35-percent reduction for the rest and would, therefore, be subject to a maximum retail price (MRP) through an executive order (EO).
“She [President Arroyo] has given them ample time to comply. So that’s it. The die is cast. We have to do what we need to do. We will just amend the original EO to include, instead of 21, about six to seven products. . . .The effectivity will be August 15 [of] the EO as well as the implementation of the voluntary price reduction,” he said.
Duque said the government will hold the drug companies to their voluntary price compliance, “unless they show us proof that certain conditions have arisen; for example, if there has been a forex [foreign-exchange] movement, the dollar-to-peso exchange rate has tremendously changed, and many other factors.”
“Unless they are able to clearly show this, then we will not agree to any price increases within a six-month period,” he said.
Duque confirmed that Norvasc (amlodipine besylate) is among the products that pharmaceutical companies refused to subject to a half-price reduction, and will thus be included in the amended EO he will submit to the President for approval on Wednesday.
He did not name the other drugs to be subjected to an MRP but said two are anti-infection drugs, one is anticholesterol, two are anticancer drugs and another is an antidiabetes drug.
In the Senate, one of its leaders said the proposed antitrust law’s tough penalty provisions would compel profiteering pharmaceutical firms to bring down drug prices if they continue to defy the cheaper medicines law.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile explained that the antitrust law is aimed at protecting not just the consumers of electricity, water and petroleum products, but also those who regularly buy medicines from pharmaceutical companies at prohibitive prices.
“This is why we need an antitrust law. That is what is needed. They [profiteers] will be jailed. They will be imposed with heavy penalty if they violate the law,” he added partly in Filipino.
Citing the apparent hesitance of pharmaceutical firms to comply with the cheaper medicines law and voluntarily bring down prices, Enrile said the government would be justified in imposing price control on medicines.
“If that is the position of these pharmaceutical firms, and if I am the one in Malacañang, I will impose price control; I will put a ceiling right away,” he said, noting that President Arroyo gave these companies 10 days to voluntarily cut drug prices “because they do enjoy enormous profit margins.”
This developed as Sen. Mar Roxas demanded that Pfizer Inc. submit to a congressional oversight committee its records on lobbying with the Philippine government in connection with the passage into law and the implementation of the one-year-old cheaper medicines law.
At the same time, Roxas also asked the US government to investigate possible violations by Pfizer of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and local laws in the company’s attempts to influence the Philippine legislature and the government into watering down the cheaper medicines law.
Duque said the draft EO would just amend the earlier proposed EO setting mandatory retail prices of all 21 essential drugs, to include only the six to seven drugs.
The other essential medicines are antihypertensive telmisartan and irbesartan; antithrombotic clopidogrel; anticholesterol atorvastatin; the antidiabetic gliclazide; and piperacillin + tazobactam, ciprofloxacin, azithromycin, metronidazole and co-amoxiclave, which are antibiotics.
They also include anticancer drugs bleomycin, carboplatin, cisplatin, cyclophosphamide, cytarabine, doxorubicin, etoposide, mercaptopurine, methotrexate sodium and mesna.
Duque said the proposed price list in the letter of undertaking (LOU) that the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) submitted to the DOH on July 18 is still being validated.
Eleven PHAP members and two nonmembers are represented in the LOU.
Duque said an initial validation of the list showed at least one of the drugs proposed for 50-percent price reduction is not available in local drugstores.
“We are checking it well. People will have expectations, then when they go to the drugstore, the product is not available. That’s not right. So we’re taking a little more time to validate,” he said, adding that it may not have been done on purpose.
Duque said the drug companies refused to comply with the 50-percent price reduction for some drugs in the DOH list, as reportedly “a big chunk of their profits would be affected.”
He said he did not “buy” the claim since “they have been selling drugs and medicine in this country for such a high price compared to the other countries and they’ve had it so good for such a long time.”
“They’ve generated hefty profits from the Filipinos who have been patronizing their products for the longest time. We can compare and the results can be very, very clear that the prices of such branded drugs and medicines are much higher than the Asean counterparts and also from other countries, such as India and Pakistan,” Duque said.
He said he rejected a counteroffer from certain drug firms for the government to agree to a 30-35-percent price reduction on some drugs, in exchange for adding 12 other products outside the DOH list with at 50-percent price reduction, consistent with the government policy to halve the price of essential medicines.
Meanwhile, health, patients and consumer groups asked the Arroyo government to do more in reducing drug prices.
In a picket in front of the DOH, Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD) joined patients and consumers to insist that the Arroyo government go beyond the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008 (Republic Act 9502) to ensure that drugs will be affordable and accessible to every Filipino.
According to Dr. Geneve Rivera, HEAD secretary-general, the 21 drugs supposed to be placed under the MRP is a very small number compared to the thousands of drugs in the market. These also represent a miniscule fraction of the P100-billion pharmaceutical industry.
“Only 21 drugs are on the table yet Mrs. Arroyo already blinked when faced by the transnational drug corporations,” Rivera declared. With S. Fabunan
