THE Department of Health (DoH) said it will stick to its plan for price controls on the most widely-used drugs, amid proposals by the pharmaceuticals industry for alternatives like bulk purchases by the government.
The DoH said Thursday that while it supports the move by the Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) to reduce prices of 155 medicines by as much as 75%, it added that PHAP’s proposal does not guarantee price reductions by all establishments selling these medicines.
“We must take some things into consideration. First of all, given its voluntary nature, PHAP cannot guarantee price reduction at points of sale, such as drugstores, drug retailers, and private hospitals, which comprise at least 90% of the total pharmaceutical market. We know that the drug prices in these markets are significantly higher compared with government prices,” Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said in a statement Thursday.
The medicines proposed for bulk purchasing by PHAP do not address the top diseases prevalent in the Philippines, the DoH added. Some medicines also have generic equivalents on the market as opposed to the medicines in the DoH’s proposed list of 122 medicines under the Maximum Drug Retail Price (MDRP) scheme.
“Of the 155 drugs promised, only 107 will have prices cut across the pharmaceutical market. The remaining 43 will only be offered to DoH hospitals which only cover less than 1% of the market. Moreover, only 63 of the 122 drugs proposed by the DoH for price reduction were included in the list, with no price reduction for other high-cost medicines,” the DoH said.
The MDRP is currently being studied by various government agencies despite earlier reports it has been submitted to the Office of the President. The DoH has said that it hopes the list will be approved by the end of 2019 before Universal Health Care (UHC) kicks off next year. — Gillian M. Cortez
