EDITORIAL – High cost of medicine

Several doctors who are now members of the House of Representatives have once again reminded policy-makers that medicine prices in the Philippines are up to 200 percent higher than in many other countries. The problem is not new; many years ago, high medicine prices prompted the government to promote the use of generic drugs. A few years later, the government started importing some of the most widely used drugs at much lower prices from countries such as India.

Despite those measures, the problem persists, according to 16 physicians who are now congressmen. The 16 are endorsing a bill that aims to bring down medicine prices. They point out that a study jointly undertaken in 1999 by the Department of Health and the Department of Trade and Industry indicated that five out of nine sampled drugs in this country were priced higher than in Indonesia or Malaysia. The antibiotic Amoxil costs more in the Philippines than in Canada or the United Kingdom.

A study conducted by a non-government organization attributed the high medicine costs in the Philippines to the country’s dependence on imported drugs, transfer pricing and additional expenses for product promotion and patenting.

Generic drug use and importation of cheaper medicine for sale in government health centers helped, but the long-term solution to this problem is the development of a local pharmaceutical industry. Research and development to come up with a single drug, however, can take nearly a decade and cost hundreds of millions of dollars – something no local pharmaceutical firm can afford. For now local companies are content to take over the production and distribution of drugs whose patents have run out.

India is showing that even developing countries can have a thriving local pharmaceutical industry whose products have reliable efficacy. For a Philippine pharmaceutical industry to develop, the country needs substantial investments in R&D. Local companies can be given certain forms of tax breaks. The country will also need what India has in abundance – highly skilled human resources. This will require improving the quality of Philippine education, particularly in the sciences.

These are not impossible tasks. As long as the country remains dependent on imported medicine as well as raw materials for drug manufacturing, Filipinos will have to live with high medicine costs.