Medicines are very expensive in the Philippines

[jpdm]

Pharmaceutical power
By Solita Collas-Monsod
Inquirer
Last updated 02:21am (Mla time) 08/11/2007
MANILA, Philippines -- It is a reflection of the power of the multinational pharmaceutical companies in the Philippines that almost 20 years after the passage of the Generics Law in the Philippines, generic products account for less than 5 percent of drugs and medicines sold in the country. This is in contrast with what is happening in the United States, which passed a similar law only four years before we did, but where generics now account for 60 percent of drug sales.
And this state of affairs persists even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that the prices of commonly used, branded medicines sold here can be as much as 10 times higher than the same medicines sold in other Asian countries and, sometimes, even higher than they are sold in industrial countries like the United States and Canada. We’re talking not only about the same medicine but the same manufacturer, mind you.
It is also a reflection of the power of the multinational pharmaceutical companies in the Philippines that Sen. Mar Roxas has been unsuccessful so far in pushing for his bill (filed in 2005) that would result in cheaper medicines for the Filipino people.



Of course, let’s face it, these multinationals would not be able to exercise such power without the cooperation of Filipinos themselves, in particular some members of the medical profession and some members of Congress. The American multinationals also have in their arsenal some very high-priced lobbyists, including former high-ranking US Embassy officials.
All these require a lot of money -- either directly in cash, or converted to in-kind contributions (financing hotel and travel expenditures, underwriting seminars and conferences) or for lawsuits and temporary restraining orders when all else fails. Moreover, they don’t seem to hesitate to apply outright intimidation techniques; threats to withhold supplies to drugstores that do not “cooperate” with them have also been used.
A few examples of how the pharmaceutical power is exercised:
That the Generics Law of 1988 was passed at all is not for want of trying on the part of the pharmaceutical industry to block it, including the use of the Philippine Medical Association in the fight, but because of the perseverance of Alran Bengzon, who was health secretary at the time.

One of the Trojan horses that got stuck in it was allowing doctors to prescribe their choice of branded medicine (a practice not allowed in US laws) together with the generic prescription. And this is what most doctors in private practice in the Philippines do. That they seem to have very cozy relationships with drug companies is perhaps due to the fact that they get a lot of freebies, which are ultimately paid for by the Filipino consumer: 20 percent of the price paid by Filipinos for their medicine is used by pharmaceuticals to pay for “promotions,” i.e., expenses incurred for sponsoring doctors’ foreign trips, seminars, conferences, as well as ads and other endorsements.
Then there was the attempt 10 years later, even as the generics law was perceived to have fallen by the wayside, of then-secretary of trade and industry Mar Roxas to initiate “parallel importation,” that is, buying branded, off-patent (i.e., the patents held by the drug companies had already expired) medicines from India that were selling there at a fraction of Philippine prices. Roxas was reacting to studies which showed how Filipinos were paying much higher prices for essential medicines than their Asian and Western counterparts.


Ang local auto industry,oligopoly. Ang local oil industry, oligopoly. pati ba naman gamot.......hayyyy........

[chain]

malaki gasto ng mga drug companies sa mga doctor's convention ah. hehehe binabawi nila sa presyo.

[uls]

Sa India, branded medicine made by multinational pharma has to compete with medicine made by India's big generic drug manufacturers Ranbaxy, Cipla...

so the multinationals have to lower their prices to be competitive.

Dito sa atin highway robbery ang presyo ng gamot... they dont have strong competition from generics...

Alam kasi ng mga multinationals walang choice mga pinoy... kahit gaano kataas ang presyo, kelangan bilhin kasi life is at stake.

[shadow]

tama yun article, they have 1 billion fund for lobbying...ilan congressmen lang ba kailangan lagyan para di pumasa yun bill....

[cutedoc]

mahal tax sa pinas

[XTO]

What would you expect? Sa med reps na lang, talagang galante sila makuha lang ang favor ng isang consultant and even mga residents pa lang. Ilang daang pasyente ang hawak ng isang consultant? Ang lakas mag sponsor ng mga pharma sa mga events ng various specialties. Natural kailangang bawiin yan.

Hopefully ma pasa nga yang batas na yan.

[O!lman]

Sa India, branded medicine made by multinational pharma has to compete with medicine made by India's big generic drug manufacturers Ranbaxy, Cipla...

so the multinationals have to lower their prices to be competitive.

Dito sa atin highway robbery ang presyo ng gamot... they dont have strong competition from generics...

Alam kasi ng mga multinationals walang choice mga pinoy... kahit gaano kataas ang presyo, kelangan bilhin kasi life is at stake.

+1
Sa India ako talaga nagpapabili ng Medicines thru my Indian friends and co-employees. Ang laki ng savings. Inhalers made by Cipla, Plendil by AstraZenica, Amlodipine,Metformin etc... Bumibili ako nitong mga gamot na ito to help my less fortunate brothers and sisters sa community namin sa Couples for Christ.Every month akong nauwi with all medicines purchased in India. Hindi naman ako nagkaka-problema sa Customs(God is with me eh).

Yung Plendil 5mg sa India ay Php5.00 lang against Php42 sa Mercury drug stores.
Amlodipine 5mg- Php3.50(India).....Mercury Drugs- Php45

Napakalaki ng difference. Let us support the Cheap Medicine bill of Sen. Roxas to help our less fortunate kababayan.

[uls]

+1
Sa India ako talaga nagpapabili ng Medicines thru my Indian friends and co-employees. Ang laki ng savings. Inhalers made by Cipla, Plendil by AstraZenica, Amlodipine,Metformin etc... Bumibili ako nitong mga gamot na ito to help my less fortunate brothers and sisters sa community namin sa Couples for Christ.Every month akong nauwi with all medicines purchased in India. Hindi naman ako nagkaka-problema sa Customs(God is with me eh).

Yung Plendil 5mg sa India ay Php5.00 lang against Php42 sa Mercury drug stores.
Amlodipine 5mg- Php3.50(India).....Mercury Drugs- Php45

Napakalaki ng difference. Let us support the Cheap Medicine bill of Sen. Roxas to help our less fortunate kababayan.

kaya sa DLI ako bumibili ng gamot.

Yoko mapunta sa multinational pharma pera ko. They dont deserve my money.

You're doing the right thing Mr. Centum. Please keep it up and please do so on an even larger scale.

Sana pumasok sa Pinas ang Ranbaxy and Cipla.

They will give multinational pharma strong competition... something they dont have right now.

[jpdm]

kaya sa DLI ako bumibili ng gamot.

Yoko mapunta sa multinational pharma pera ko. They dont deserve my money.

I definitely agree with you. We should buy medicines from local pharma.

As I mentioned in this thread, Unilab, Pascual, DLI ang leading the way. They are slowly breaking the stragglehold of these moth%^$RFuc&$#R multinational companies which are bleeding us dry.

Malinaw na malinaw yung example sa India, niloloko tayo ng mga multinationals na yan.

Ang masakit lang pati sa maraming Filipino doctors in cohorts sa mga bwisit na mga yan!!!

We should support Unilab and other local generic companies to break the oligopoly in our pharma industry.

Goddamn multinational pharma dito --they all stink, style nila bulok--niloloko na tayo ng harapan!! Dapat isama sa mga sunugin ang mga yan dahil mga socio-economic saboteurs yan!!!!!SH%$#TTT!!!

Dapat magising na Pinoy!

[CVT]

Pharmaceutical power
By Solita Collas-Monsod
Inquirer
Last updated 02:21am (Mla time) 08/11/2007

.................................................. .......................

Ang local auto industry,oligopoly. Ang local oil industry, oligopoly. pati ba naman gamot.......hayyyy........

Kawawa naman tayo rito sa Pinas..... (Pero, masaya raw ang mga tao rito....)

3505:kodak:

[uls]

Multinational pharma has way too much power over our doctors

[6shooter]

Ang may kasalanan din ay ang mga doktor na nag papabili sa mga malaking pharma company. form of corruption din yan. may conscience ba ang mga doctor na yan? don't think so kasi they have big egos.

Pharma companies tulad ng Unilab ay nagpapasok ng mga possibly tainted drugs galing Tsina. far fetched? May nagsabi po sa kin sa loob na ginagawa nila yun at hindi fully tested ang mga droga. Ngayon may konsyensya ba ang Pharma companies? Saan niyo palagay nakukuha nila ang malaking budget nila para kunin sila Aga, Juday, etc pang endorse. Kitang kita sa EDSA billboards na maraming pera pumapasok sa kanila.

At ang tanong sinong namamatay? Hindi ang mga taga Pharma companies kundi ang kapwa nilang Pilipino. Murder ba ang tawag dun?

[niky]

There'd better be some solid proof for an allegation such as that to hold up in court. If the person who told you that really wanted to help, he/she ought to go to the DFA or Malacanang with that story.

I've heard too many "sabi-sabi" stories that didn't go anywhere.

----

RE: profits: obviously, all companies are in it to make a profit, including Pharmaceutical companies. As long as they can hold on to their prices and remain unopposed, they'll do so.

A lot of doctors are on the roll, yes, but they're also victims of the propaganda... many of them truly believe that certain brand-name drugs are superior to the generic items (one even went so far as to claim that there's "more" of the active ingredient in one than in other, cheaper drugs... even though the formulation is exactly the same...). Despite the generics law being passed, lots of doctors still give prescriptions specifying brand names.

[6shooter]

There'd better be some solid proof for an allegation such as that to hold up in court. If the person who told you that really wanted to help, he/she ought to go to the DFA or Malacanang with that story.

I've heard too many "sabi-sabi" stories that didn't go anywhere.

--

The person claims they are already trying to educate the doctors and users. It is for a unique type of generics that are called biosimilars. Check on the net. They are made from human genes and in China and India (which is the cheap source of the alternative used by a local pharma vs the multinationals who follow strict safety guidelines) they have suspect production methods as well as safety checks. The human genes used in production may have HIV, hepa, etc. Unfortunately our generics law categorizes biosimilars as generics when they shouldn't be daw. So these drugs can proliferate here and in the third world. When in fact they are banned in the 1st world. Sorry po pero medyo complicated yung kwento at ito ay parang summary lang. Ngayon pag drug company kayo at alam niyo di pumasa sa labas pero dito pumasa dahil sa loophole paanu po iyon?

[uls]

here's a NYTimes article re the very high cost of cancer drugs
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/bu...cffa44&ei=5088

"Until now, drug makers have typically defended high prices by noting the cost of developing new medicines. But executives at Genentech and its majority owner, Roche, are now using a separate argument---citing the inherent value of life sustaining therapies.

If society wants the benefits, they say, it must be ready to spend for treatments...."

------------------------------------------------------------------

My view:

The high cost of healthcare is natural selection pressure on society. But it's more artificial selection.

Those who can afford treatment will live.

Those who cant afford treatment will die.

Survival of the fittest... the fittest are those who have money.

This is what the world has come to.

[ale828]

Most Doctors are as corrupt as most Politicians. Trust me on this. People just think that since they help people they are better people but in truth the favors they get from big companies do contribute to the high medicine price. but as a doctor i know some of them can' thelp being blinded by gifts from big multinationals. some good doctors came from provinces and never had some the good things in life that the multinationals are offering.

[o10ciano]

o mga indio ano pa hini hintai natin...

[O!lman]

o mga indio ano pa hini hintai natin...

I hope you are not insulting anyone here

[uls]

Indio? what the hell was that all about?

anyway...

READ THIS: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20379563/wid/11915773

an article today from MSN, re financial ties between docs and big pharma

[jpdm]

o mga indio ano pa hini hintai natin...

Sir, di ako indio at cguro lahat ng mga tsikoteers sa thread na ito.

Ang indio nasa india. Kasi ang spanish sa indian, indio. Sino ang iniintay mo?