Philippine Pharma's Assertive Advocacy - Hands Off Our Profits

Everyday here in the Philippines, thousands of people die not because they are uncurable, but because they cannot afford the medicine for their illnesses. Despite the same medicine being cheaper in our neighboring countries, prices are still protected here for the benefit of select few Big Foreign Pharmaceutical Companies.

Since they are cheaper in our neighboring countries, the government through PTIC tried to import them and sell them through the botica ng bayan outlets, but the Big Foreign Pharma companies threatened to sue the government, saying they are infringing on their patents.

------------------
"Why are the prices of medicine in the Philippines so high? Because of the Intellectual Property Code which gives a pharmaceutical company that discovered or developed a medicine a 25-year patent on that medicine. This patent gives it a monopoly to produce and sell that medicine. Without any competition, it can sell its medicine at any price it wants. The policy of multinational pharmaceutical companies here is to price their medicines for “as much as the market can bear.” That is why prices of their drugs here are sky-high. Filipinos are forced to buy them because they have no choice. There are no competing products."

"Why are drug prices in other Asian nations much lower? Because they have amended their Intellectual Property Code or passed laws to allow their own pharmaceutical companies to manufacture the same drugs under certain conditions. On the other hand, the IPC in force here does not even allow the importation of cheaper medicines that are the same as those sold here by multinational companies—even if these medicines are produced by their satellite companies. Any importer, government or private, faces the threat of a court suit from these multinational companies that do not want imported drugs to compete with their products."
-- From inquirer.net Neal Cruz June 13, 2007
---------------

The sad part here is these companies earn the humongous profits, yet they don't pay the income tax here! Since the local subsidiary don't have much expenses here in the Philippines, the foreign mother firm charges exorbitant fees to the subsidiary, allowing the foreign mother firm to absorb the profit, offset their foreign expenses and pay less tax elsewhere.

Although some of our lawmakers have seen the light and have exerted efforts to correct this gap, our congress still does not have enough maturity to produce or amend the necessary laws for medicine prices to be at par with our region. We still have the 2nd highest cost of medicine in Asia. The Senate actually passed the bill just this year before Congress went on recess on February. But the House of Representatives were not able to pass their version, I wonder why??? During February's House deliberations, a lawyer of one Foreign Pharmaceutical firm slipped a note to one congressman asking him to question the quorum. Is this enough evidence that they won't give up their exorbitant profits easily? Their press release is they are engaged in "assertive advocacy" and not concerned by the "loss in profits". Yeah right.