Court OKs importation of cheap drugs from India

The court has denied a petition for temporary restraining order (TRO) filed by multinational drug companies against the government in an attempt to stop the importation of cheap branded drugs from India.

The order was issued by Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Delia H. Panganiban who dismissed the petition by the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) for lack of merit.

However, Panganiban upheld PHAP’s petition for prohibition, indicating that the court would hear the group’s allegations that government’s parallel importation of cheap branded drugs from India was a violation of the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies that produce the same branded drugs in the Philippines.

In the petition, PHAP claimed the implementation of Administrative Order 85 by the Department of Health allowing the importation would cause the "proliferation of adultered drugs and medicines and would damage the reputation of pharmaceutical companies."

According to Panganiban, however, PHAP failed to convince the court that the implementation of AO 85 would cause irreparable damage to pharmaceutical companies.

Panganiban also said the court admitted the fact that the importation of "similarly branded medicine" would be "beneficial to patients of government hospitals by making these drugs available to them at a price lower than the prevailing price of the same drugs dispensed by (PHAP)."

PHAP is a group of about 80 multinational companies that manufacture or sell branded drugs in the country and they had been at loggerheads with the government over the prices of drugs that are sold here compared to identical but much cheaper drugs manufactured and sold in other Asian countries.

The court decision paves the way for government’s plan to import a second, bigger batch of branded drugs from India for distribution to a wider range of government hospitals nationwide, following the success of its first importation.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Health (DOH) launched the program this year, importing lower-priced drugs and selling these through government hospitals.

According to the DTI, the same corporations that manufacture them in the Philippines manufacture the products imported from India. However, the branded drugs sold in the country are at times 10 times more expensive than identical drugs sold in India and other Asian countries.

The government, through the DTI’s Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) imported P1.5 million worth of popular branded drugs for hypertension, infections and asthma such as Adalat Retard (nifedipine), Bactrim (cotrimoxazole) and Ventolin (salbutamol).

Imported Bactrim is sold through government hospitals for P4.73 per dose compared to the locally-made Bactrim that costs P24.10. This medicine is a front line treatment for pneumonia.

Ventolin, on the other hand, is sold at P198.51 per metered dose inhaler compared to the local Ventolin sold at P294.75 Adalat Retard, the popular hypertension drug, is sold at P4.54 per 20 mg tablet compared to P25.25 per tablet for the locally produced counterpart.

The DTI had been expecting aggressive opposition to its planned importation of cheap branded pharmaceutical products, from lawsuits to the possible release of fake products to sabotage the program.

DTI earlier said it was aware of the plans by multinational pharmaceutical companies to take legal action against the government. The DTI also mentioned reports that unscrupulous industry players are planning extra-legal steps to collapse the program.