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KARACHI,
Pakistan—A
popular brand of paracetamol costs more than P2 a tablet
in the Philippines, while a generic brand costs only the
equivalent of less than 40 centavos in Pakistan.
Another
tablet, an alendronate that is taken to prevent
osteoporosis when calcium could not be absorbed by
certain patients, costs more than P800 a tablet in
Manila. In Pakistan? The same brand name, the same
everything, costs only the equivalent a little more than
half.
To
satisfy my curiosity, I bought some of the
above-mentioned medicines from a drugstore in Karachi.
Indeed, they are much, much cheaper. Although I’m not
sure if our own cheaper-medicines bill could result in
drug prices equal to Pakistan, I hope it will at least
significantly cut the very high prices charged
Filipinos.
I was
also struck by the fact of many pharmacies in Pakistan
dispensing only locally produced generic drugs. The
foreign-branded alendronate I bought for a little more
than P400 in
Karachi only costs P87 a tablet if a generic, or only one-tenth of
the P800 for a foreign-branded tablet in
Manila.
It is no
surprise that
Pakistan
takes great pride in its lower-priced medicines, so that
its Ambassador to the Philippines, Muhammad Naeem Khan,
advised six Filipino journalists, invited to Pakistan,
to compare the prices of medicines in
Pakistan
with Philippine prices before they leave.
The
Philippine government through the Philippine
International Trading Corp. (PITC) started importing
medicines from Pakistan in 2005 to provide cheap
medicines to Filipinos through its Botika ng Bayan
program.
From
$2.5 million in 2005, imports jumped to $4.5 million in
2006, described by Philippine Ambassador to Pakistan
Jimmy Yambao as a “spectacular increase.”
It has
also heightened objections from the multinational
pharmaceutical companies operating in the
Philippines
that several times attempted to block the importation.
Yambao
rejected the idea that the Pakistani-made drugs are
cheap because they are fake or substandard. He stressed
that he and former PITC head Roberto Pagdanganan had
visited Pakistani pharmaceutical plants and they saw how
“high standards” mark their manufacturing operations.
He said
one reason why pharmaceutical products may be cheaper in
Pakistan is because they could manufacture the
equivalent of the foreign brands in spite of the foreign
ones being patented.
Pakistan—as
some African countries also have—has defied the patent
protection in the name of ensuring the health of its
people, many of whom are poor.
It is
popular knowledge that medicines are much more expensive
in the Philippines because the multinational drug
companies have strong control of the industry, including
pricing. It is also popularly known that they add
public-relations expenses such as bringing doctors to
conferences here and abroad or give out free tickets and
accommodations and other such promotion activities.
A news
report had said that an Asean survey showed the retail
prices of medicines in fellow Asean member-nations
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are 40 percent to 70
percent lower than in the
Philippines.
The
Philippine Senate and House of Representatives for some
years have struggled to pass their respective versions
of a cheap-medicines bill but intense lobbying—including
rumors of huge payoffs—by foreign pharmaceutical firms
have blocked the attempt in several Congresses. At one
point in the House deliberations, PDP Laban Rep. Teodoro
Locsin Jr. of Makati City demanded the ouster from the
gallery of a drug industry lobbyist for passing him a
note giving subtle instructions to question the quorum.
He has since aggressively fought for diluting the
foreign drug lobby influence in the final version of the
cheap-medicine bill, which now awaits the President’s
signature.
The
present 14th Congress has finally been able to pass such
a bill that has been already ratified by the bicameral
committee—on the eve of May 1 Labor Day “as the
legislature’s gift to the people.”
Titled
“Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines
Act of 2008,” the bill seeks to bring down the price of
medicine by encouraging more competition in the local
pharmaceutical market through the parallel importation
of quality but cheaper medicines.
It also
seeks to help the local generics industry by amending
the Intellectual Property Code and strengthening the
regulatory powers of the Bureau of Food and Drugs
against substandard medicine. |
