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Friday, March 28, 2003
Espinoza: Health, trade agencies settle cheap drugs row
By Fred C. Espinoza
TWO WAYS. The government has identified two options that would address the patients’ needs for more access to affordable medicines.
This matter became clear when the trade and industry and health departments agreed recently to “reinvigorate” efforts to lower domestic prices of medicines through a two-pronged approach—flood the market with cheap drugs from India and bolster the use of generic drugs.
The agreement was reached after Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II and Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit smoked the peace pipe Wednesday to end a Cabinet drug war, wherein the two agencies undertook conflicting strategies, it was learned. The two agencies have agreed to map out their next moves to push further the lowering of medicine prices in the country.
Roxas said the DTI would intensify its parallel importation program of drugs from India dubbed “Presyong Tama, Gamot Pangpamilya.”
The DTI, through its trading arm, Philippine International Trading Corp., is set to import P500 million worth of drugs this year or more than six times what it brought in during the program’s maiden year.
The shipments are likely to include a number of copyrighted medicines like anti-cancer and anti-HIV drugs as the DTI vowed to maximize the Doha declaration on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (Trips) on public health that allowed developing countries to issue compulsory licenses for the importation of patented medicine.
For its part, the DOH would work with local generic companies to boost their market penetration and meet with hospital administrators of all government hospitals to encourage them to patronize the Presyong Tama drugs.
UNDERMINING PROGRAM. Roxas had previously criticized the DOH for undermining the Presyong Tama program by failing to pay PITC for the Indian drugs it sold through DOH-accredited hospitals. This is aside from its lukewarm support for the DTI’s parallel importation as it preferred the promotion of the use of generic drugs as a more effective means of pulling down drug prices in the country.
PTIC has asked the DOH to pay P40 million (out of the P65 million worth of drugs it purchased last year) to replenish the Presyong Tama funds to buy more medicine from India where drugs are sold at roughly a tenth of their retail prices in the Philippines, according to reports.
But from all appearances, the challenge we are facing is not that simple. Giant players in the global pharmaceutical market will surely move heaven and earth to protect their interests and that of the industry as well.
Take Pfizer, for example. It has taken the lead in advocating greater protection of patents to policy makers in the European community.
STRONG LOBBY. As part of the strong lobby, the industry players have also tried to impress on their hosts the idea of attracting huge investments from the players in the global pharmaceutical market.
To blunt the issue raised by Trade Secretary Roxas that the industry players could be drawing “blood money” from people of Third World countries, Pfizer, in one of its forums, took refuge behind the argument of a noted French professor, Giuseppe Nistico.
Nistico said: “The miracle of treatments and wonder drugs we all dream of do not come about by accident. The average cost of developing a single new medicine has been estimated at approximately 900 million euros, and the development process takes as long as 12 to 13 years. Unless the pharmaceutical industry is able to reap the rewards of this investment, investors will have little incentive to continue research into the discovery of new drugs.”
It is quite clear that the industry is trying to use the European market as a counterweight to the Doha declaration on Trips on public health. It would also be worthy to note that in a recent vote on the future of EU pharmaceutical legislation, the European Parliament modified a legislative proposal made by the European Commission which was already a compromise proposal, to allow for a harmonized 10-year data exclusivity period, plus an extra year if a significant new therapeutic indication is authorized. The proposal was already a balanced compromise, which the Parliament should have supported as such.
The industry feels that the protection of regulatory data, or “data exclusivity period,” is the key to making sure that the innovation and investment can continue to come to Europe. Another feature on the compromise agreement would be to allow generic manufacturers to submit their application for marketing authorization eight years after the first authorization granted to the original medicinal product.
(March 28, 2003 issue)
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