WHAT has our country become? Are we still democratic or is this the start of our shift to totalitarianism?
With the passage of the cheaper medicines bill, our right to choose what we want to buy and how much we want to spend for it has now been curtailed. Now the government will start telling you what to buy and dictate to businesses how much they must sell their goods for.
Businesses are now at the mercy of the government as they will now be run from the outside. Entrepreneurs be warned! It is now dangerous to set up shop in the Philippines. No wonder foreign investors pulled out, which made our stock market fall 100 points (3 percent) today. I cannot believe that our congressmen could pass such a bill that has effectively cut free trade in this country built and known for its democratic way of life.
How I wish they could have considered these several points that I will highlight:
1. There are costs in producing medicines. The higher the quality, the more investment that will be needed. How can you produce a 500mg Amoxicillin capsule at P1.50 if the cost of the raw materials alone, less the production cost, is already at P2.50??? What does this tell you? I wonder just how much of the medicine is actually inside these capsules; do the math. Will these congressmen honestly use generic brands when their own children get sick? Take this P1.50 Amoxicillin in front of a camera Mr. Congressman.
2. Researching a new drug takes years to develop. The company will run countless tests and endless re-tests to develop a brand. This will take millions, even billions in investment. The patent will ensure that they are properly compensated for all the hardship. Now, the government would like to just step in and cash in on the hard work of others.
3. Parallel importation is so unfair to business as the government will benefit from the marketing and promotion of the company selling the brand locally. Plus the fact that now, you won’t be sure if the branded product that you are buying is the real thing or the low quality parallel-imported one. Has everyone forgotten that the reason for getting into business is to earn a profit? The pharmaceutical industry is a business, my dear congressmen, not a charitable institution. Therefore, it is not their fault if they are selling and promoting their products for profit! The best that you could have done for the people is to put an end to corruption and give out free medicine, which we taxpayers have paid for. Our health centers have long been out of stock of vaccines and medicines that used to be given for free to the poor. Where has the budget for all these products gone? We have one of the highest taxes in the region, yet this benefit is not being enjoyed by the poor. This is because for every peso collected, only 0.40 goes back to us and we lose the rest to corruption.
The passage of this bill sends chills to my spine as now it has set the precedent for other monstrous things to happen. Who’s to suffer next? Maybe the cost of the Louis Vuitton bag is much too high for the government that they would next pass a bill telling LV to sell it at only P500.00 as they find it overpriced! I really am dreading what’s in store for businesses here in this country. Totalitarianism will drive our booming economy to the ground.
– Paul Santillana, Sikatuna Village, Quezon City, Philippines (via e-mail)
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January 20th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Dear Paul,
it looks really like you are in business with drugs. Or why you are damning a bill which would allow even poor people to avail the medicines they need? Besides, nobody disallows you to buy more expensive branded medicines, the bill only protects poor people from being forced to buy the expensive drugs they cannot afford.
Your being pityful with the drug manufacturers is more than obvious. If you want to explain why drugs have to be expensive, then please be correct.
Yes, it takes time and money to create a new medicine, but as long as it is new, anyway no cheaper generic is allowed by patent rules. Where are generics, usually the patent is already outdated. And at this time, the costs of research are already recovered hundred times if the drug was successful. If not, anyway nobody will produce genericas.
About Amoxillin, please remind youself that this drug is sold under countless names and prices up to 20 times the generic price. Not to mention that the most expensive kind are often produced by franchise companies, not by the original inventor.
In addition, why for example my eye medicine cost more in RP than in expensive Europe or USA? It even has increased instead of becoming cheaper in Pesos because imports are billed in cheap Dollars.
Contrary to other Health Insurances, the philippine Philhealth does not cover medicines, which means that a patient even hospitalized with Philhealth cannot afford the medicines he or she got prescribed.
I have been for a check at a hospital and they prescribed pills to buy at the hospital pharmacy, near 70 Pesos each. After using it, I bought the same pills as generics, the same content, for 10 Pesos each at a normal pharmacy. The difference made about 2000 Pesos for 14 days.
And there is another important fact at generics: Usually they contain only the original product and nothing else. While branded products mostly have some additional contents which are not helpful or often even contradicting the working of the real needed content.
Just think at Paracetamol, it is sold under more than hundred names, with several additions which are completely unneeded for what Paracetamol has to do, pain relief. But still such brands have an extremewide range of prices, so why not to buy the generic original, Paracetamol and nothing else?