RP has most expensive medicines in the world — PITC

Medicine in the Philippines, including most common paracetamol-based pain relievers sold in sari-sari (variety) stores, is among the most expensive in the world.

Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) chairman and president Roberto Pagdanganan confirmed this fact yesterday and announced plans by the government to address the problem of overpriced medicine.

He said medicines are more expensive in the country compared with other countries because of several factors.

One of these, Pagdanganan explained, is the "cartel system," or the non-competitive structure by which drugs are manufactured, distributed and sold to consumers in the Philippines.

"It’s the system," he said, pointing an accusing finger at those who control prices of medicine because they control the market.

Manufacturers, he explained, are forced to price and sell their products according to the dictates of a cartel system.

Pagdanganan also said prices of medicines in the Philippines are higher because of the lower per capita income.

He said the income of each working Filipino doesn’t allow him or her enough money for essential medicines, especially when the choice needs to be made between health care and the bare necessities of life, like food and shelter.

Pagdanganan said the system requires more free-market competition to enable local drug manufacturers to reach consumers with less-expensive products.

Branded generic medicines, he said, may be a solution since generic medicines usually have names never heard before and are therefore usually not trusted.

Pagdanganan, who signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with top executives of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline Philippines (GSK) yesterday, said partnerships with multi-national companies like the latter would help lower prices of the most-needed medicines in the country.

The MOA sealed a tie-up between the PITC and GSK that will enable GSK medicines to be sold at PITC’s "Botika ng Bayan" outlets all over the country under the Value Health Program.

The retail outlets will now be selling GSK products, mostly anti-bacterial medicines and anti-asthma drugs, at prices lower by as much as 40 percent.