Liberal Party President Senator Mar Roxas this week scored the Department of Health’s (DOH) leadership for its seeming lack of enthusiasm and political will to ensure the timely release of a second set of medicines to be subjected to the Maximum Drug Retail Price (MDRP).
Four months after the first list of medicines under MDRP, the primary author of the Cheaper Medicines Law lamented that the DOH is claiming that it is still in the process of gathering information, despite the growing clamour of patients to subject more essential and life-saving drugs to the MDRP.
"I’m surprised, disappointed and aghast that there seems to be no next round. It would seem to me that, after the first 21 where you have relative success, you would already have a list of 100 which you will then narrow down," Roxas said during a hearing by the Quality Affordable Medicines Oversight Committee.
"This is like failure by negligence, by disinterest, it’s as if this was designed not to go forward beyond the 21 medicines. Was this, by the way, part of the deal when GMA met with those companies? I was surprised that there was no directive from the Secretary, who is vying for a public position," Roxas stressed.
Dr. Robert So, head executive assistant of DOH Sec. Francisco Duque, said during the hearing that DOH is still in the process of gathering information, and that the next list may come out between January and March. Duque was not present during the hearing.
"What kind of information do they need that is difficult to source, given that these are not likely to be trade secrets anyway? How difficult is it to get these information, given the powers granted to the Secretary of Health under the Cheaper Medicines Act?" Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros said.
Hontiveros, a co-author of the law, said the DOH should have antici-pated the information needs and kept the momentum with the law in place. She stressed the need to actively monitor the law’s implementation, noting that MDRP is just one of the law’s provisions, such as the amendments to the Intellectual Property Code, and strengthening domestic generics produc-tion, among others.
Cancer Warrior Foundation Executive Director James Auste pointed out that while the first list of drugs under MDRP included medicines for children’s cancer, one of the most important drugs to cancer patients – Leunase – was not included in the list. Leunase costs roughly P3,000 in the Philippines, but it only costs P1,400 in Singapore and P1,000 in India.
Meanwhile, retired actor Subas Herrero, a stroke survivor and diabetic, suggested to the DOH to put the consumers’ interest vis-a-vis high priced medicines. "Wouldn’t it be possible to make that second list dependent on how the medicines cost, rather than the therapeutic effects of the medicines?"
Roxas noted that the means to attain relevant information on international benchmark prices are available anyway to the government, such as the foreign trade service attaches who could be tasked to canvass prices in their assigned countries.
He also warned multinational pharma-ceutical interests against making any other effort to block or delay the implementation of the law.
"You said let’s go slow in looking beyond the 21 medicines because companies cannot absorb the losses. This idea is dead on arrival. That is totally unacceptable," he said in response to a representative of the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines who was present during the hearing.
"We had to pass a law because every effort to bring down prices of medicines in our country has been met with stonewalling, was met with harassment and suits that were filed against those that were making an effort to bring down prices," he said.
Since the first MDRP list containing 5 medicines was passed, prices of these medicines have been brought down by 50 percent. These include the anti-hypertensive drug Norvasc, which costs P46.25 per 5mg tablet before the imposition of MDRP, was brought down to P22.85 per tablet.
But in July, instead of imposing MDRP on all 21 medicines previously determined by DOH, the government instead negotiated with other multinational companies to voluntarily drop prices on 16 other medicines. Although less than ideal, the prices of the 16 drugs were reduced too by 50 percent, such as the antibiotic drug Ciprobay, which now costs P41.90 per 500mg tablet from its previous price of P83.75.
Roxas also noted that despite the imposition of MDRP, drugstores are able to maintain roughly a 5 percent margin over medicines they sell.
"What we see here is that the high price of medicines is not much due to the retail’s markup. Meanwhile, to the multinationals like Pfizer, it could be said that they are charging exorbitantly," Roxas quipped. /MP
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