EDITORIAL – Costly medicine

Other public officials have pointed this out before, as well as many people who have been abroad. Medicine prices in this country are higher than in other places, making the cost of basic health care prohibitive for millions of Filipinos.

In previous years the government has addressed the problem by promoting generic drugs and even importing some of the most widely used medicine for common ailments. The efforts have paid off, but there are still too many drugs that are beyond the reach of the masses. And there is still public resistance to using generic drugs as manufacturers of branded medicines warn of the unreliable efficacy of generic drugs, particularly those imported and made by little known companies.

Medicine prices are so high that many Filipinos suffering from debilitating illnesses that need lifetime medication, such as diabetes and cardiac ailments, simply wait for death. Many Filipinos don’t bother taking medicine to relieve the discomfort of mild afflictions such as coughs.

The problem of high medicine costs was raised once again last Tuesday by the Philippine International Trading Corp. PITC officials signed an agreement with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline Philippines to sell certain drugs for common ailments such as asthma at prices up to 40 percent lower than prevailing market prices. The PITC plans to explore similar agreements with other multinational companies.

Such agreements, however, will not end the country’s dependence on foreign companies for medicine. Multinationals have long defended their pricing in the Third World by arguing that developing a drug does not come cheap. A single drug can take nearly a decade and almost a billion dollars to develop, from research stage to approval for general distribution.

That does not explain, however, why medicine prices should be higher in this country. The long-term answer is to develop a local pharmaceutical industry, with support provided by the government for research into the medicinal uses of indigenous raw materials. India has achieved some success in this area, showing the possibilities of developing indigenous pharmaceutical industries in the Third World. Local pharmaceutical firms should at least be able to produce generic drugs with the same efficacy as the branded counterparts.

Anything that can improve public health care deserves serious consideration.