Roxas urges drug firms to lower prices

Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II urged multinational drug companies yesterday to lower the prices of their products to reasonable levels instead of diverting the issue with vague accusations about counterfeit drugs.

"They should explain why their medicines are priced at unreasonably high levels," Roxas said, adding that the "Philippines has the highest medicine prices in Asia, next only to Japan."

"I cannot understand why, in some cases, medicines are sold at prices 10 times higher here than in another country in the region since they were developed and manufactured by the same company," he stressed.

The DTI head pointed out that multinational drug companies charge as much as they can knowing that they can still generate sales despite their high prices because of the importance of medicines in peoples’ lives.

"What is surprising is that the same companies are able to sell the same medicines for almost half the price abroad," Roxas said.

He said the government’s parallel importation program, Presyong Tama, Gamot Pampamilya, is making available branded, high quality medicines for common diseases and chronic ailments at very affordable prices.

"The medicines we import are of the same quality and efficacy as those manufactured by the multinational companies," Roxas said.

The drugs, Roxas assured, undergo testing before they are shipped to the Philippines and again undergo testing by the Bureau of Food and Drugs Administration upon arrival in the country.

Roxas admitted that there exists a counterfeit medicine problem, "but it (counterfeit medicine) was there even before this program and certainly we are not a party to it.?"

He further clarified that the government is not selling to the private sector and limits distribution of imported drugs to government hospitals managed either by the Department of Health or the local government units for close monitoring.