Solon urged to initiate probe on high drug prices

Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II is urging Albay Rep. Jose Sarte Salceda, chairman of the House oversight committee, to conduct a congressional inquiry why local pharmaceutical companies have not been able to bring down their prices.

Roxas also denied the committee’s allegation that the government’s parallel drug importation project is a failure.

"We acknowledge the fact that the government’s program to lower the cost of medicines was not designed to compete head on against the P50 billion local drugs industry," Roxas said.

According to Roxas, the drug program has clearly demonstrated that drug prices can be brought down.

He said the volume of imports under the parallel drug program, as noted by the oversight committee, accounts for a meager 0.16 percent of the total pharmaceutical market.

Roxas said the market for prescribed medicine is estimated to be about P20 billion. "While the program clearly shows that we have barely scratched the surface, we made substantial progress as evidenced by our sales worth P120 million to date from only P20 million last year," Roxas stressed.

Roxas agreed with the oversight committee’s observation that the parallel drug importation program should have a bigger budget.

However, he argued that the offer of Congress to provide funding of P5 billion is useless since it would still have a minimal impact on the market.

"I believe that such resources could be better utilized in other equally socially relevant projects like infrastructure in the country," he said.

Instead, Roxas urged Congress to "exert effort to break the cartel-lie behavior of the leading suppliers."