Pharma group slams DOH price ceiling plan

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) plans to impose a price ceiling on certain drugs even as a pharmaceutical and health care group wants to keep the status quo.

The DOH is currently getting comments on a draft administrative order that would impose a maximum retail price (MRP) on certain drugs that are yet to be selected. The deadline for comments is Aug. 7.

If imposed, this would mark the most recent MRP since the last price ceiling imposed in 2009 under the Arroyo administration. Back then, an MRP was imposed on antihypertensive, anticholesterol, antibiotic, and anticancer drugs.

A decade after, the draft said that important medicines in the country were still “disproportionately expensive” when compared overseas, “particularly for branded counterparts of already off-patent medicines.”

Drug price council

The DOH said the drugs would be picked based on a number of standards, such as the severity of a particular disease and the size of the population struggling with it.

The drugs would be selected with the guidance of the Drug Price Advisory Council, which would be composed of experts from various fields, such as public health, pharmaceutical policy, economics and law.

However, the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) said the recent passage of certain health-related laws already give “sustainable approaches” to improve access to medicines and health care.

The PHAP, composed of research-based providers of life-saving medicines in the country, cited the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act and National Integrated Cancer Control Act (Nicca), both of which were passed earlier this year.

Both laws have provisions at making medicine more accessible, such as provisions on price negotiations, expansion of primary care drug benefit and early access to innovative medicines, the group said.

Group purchasing

It also said that expanding pooled procurement, or group purchasing, would give the government “leverage” in further lowering the cost of medicine.

“Given the passage of the UHC Act and the Nicca, we believe that the proposed imposition of maximum retail price is unnecessary,” the PHAP said.

The MRP is allowed under Republic Act No. 9502, or the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008. The PHAP has argued that this was a stop-gap measure when there was no competition in the industry.