House set to OK drug price control bill

The House of Representatives is set to approve a bill regulating the prices of certain drugs for chronic illnesses to make these products affordable to those needing them.

Iloilo Rep. Ferjenel Biron, the bill’s principal author, told a news forum at the Serye Café in Quezon City that the House committee on health would endorse the measure next week.

He said he expects smooth sailing for his proposal since it is supported by a majority of House members.

"We have to regulate the prices of certain drugs, at least those that sick people would have to take for life, to make them affordable. These products are selling at prohibitive prices. We see people dying not from sickness but from their inability to buy the medicines they need," he said.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman expressed support for the proposed drug price regulation.

"We in Congress have to take steps to bring down the prices of medicines. I am even willing to advocate that we go to the extreme of nationalizing the pharmaceutical industry to accomplish this," he said.

He said every lawmaker, regardless of party affiliation, should support the proposed drug price regulation bill.

"There’s no politics in enabling our people buy low-priced medicines," he added.

The executive branch, through former Agrarian Reform Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan, who heads the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC), supported the drug price control measure.

"We are for a selective, time-bound price control," he told the same forum.

Pagdanganan’s agency has been importing low-priced medicines from India and selling them through the administration’s Botika sa Barangay project. Several weeks ago, it has been sued by the American company Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug manufacturer, for intending to import a medicine for hypertension when the product’s patent expires in June next year. — Jess Diaz