MANILA, Philippines ? President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has signed an executive order that would impose a mandatory across-the-board 50 per cent price reduction on five essential medicines whose prices drug companies have refused to voluntarily lower.

Executive Order 821 listed the maximum retail price for the anti-hypertensive amlodipine (including its S-isomer and all salt form); the anti-cholesterol atorvastatin; the antibiotic/antibacterial azithromycin (and all its salt form); and the anti-neoplastics/anti-cancer cytarabine and doxorubicin (and all its salt form).

The price reduction will take effect on August 15.

Last week, pharmaceutical companies have acceded to reduce by 50 per cent the prices of 16 other essential medicines which the Department of Health has found to be exorbitantly priced.

Drug companies have also offered to voluntarily reduce the prices of 22 other medicines that were not included in the list recommended for price ceiling.

Ms Arroyo issued the EO 821 as an exercise of her mandate under the so-called "cheaper medicines law" which assigned the President the power to impose the maximum retail price on selected essential medicines on the recommendation of the health secretary.