Why Filipinos are dropping dead
By: Neal H. Cruz (Inquirer)
WHY ARE MANY FILIPINOS DROPPING DEAD of heart attacks and
strokes? (These two ailments are among the top killers in the Philippines.) Here
is one reason:
Amlodipine besylate, an important drug used for the treatment of high blood
pressure marketed under the name Norvasc, is sold in Pakistan by Pfizer, a
multinational company, at the equivalent of P8.74 per 5-mg tablet and P17.09 per
10-mg tablet. In the Philippines, it is sold by the same Pfizer at P44.75 per
5-mg tablet and P74.57 per 10-mg tablet. The same Norvasc is being sold in
Indonesia at the equivalent price of P21 per 5-mg tablet and P37.93 per 10-mg
tablet; in Thailand, Norvasc is being sold at the equivalent price of P26.65 and
P45.65, respectively. The same medicine is sold by Pfizer in India under the
brand named Amlogard at the equivalent of P5.98 per 5-mg tablet and P8.96 per
10-mg tablet. Norvasc and Amlogard are both made by Pfizer, but Pfizer sells
amlodipine besylate in the Philippines at prices 650 percent and 730
percent higher than in India and more than double the price in Indonesia and
Thailand.
No wonder Filipinos are dying of complications from hypertension - they cannot afford to buy medicine to control their blood pressure. The manufacturer of Norvasc-as with most other important medicines sold here - is a multinational company (80 percent of the Philippine drug market is controlled by multinational companies). The annual sales of Norvasc alone in the Philippines is P1.2 billion, according to verified information.
Why can't Filipino pharmaceutical companies manufacture their own version of amlodipine besylate so they can supply their countrymen with cheaper medicines? Why can't the Philippine government import the medicine from Pakistan and India and sell it here to give relief to Filipinos? Because of the law on patents. This law gives a pharmaceutical company that develops a new drug a 25-year monopoly over its sale. That is to give the company enough time and opportunity to recover its investments in research and development for the drug. And the company usually prices the new drug for "as much as the market can bear" - meaning, in most cases, beyond the reach of poor patients, who die because of lack of medication.
It is ironic that companies engaged in the manufacture of medicines for the care and health of people can be so callous. It is because the executives who dictate the prices are usually far out-of-touch with the customers. These executives are ensconced in their offices in America and elsewhere, and their priority is to make as much money as they can for their companies so that they get fat bonuses and promotions at the end of the year. They couldn't care less whether or not the patients whom their products are meant to cure get well or die. The executives who are in contact with their customers- the branch managers and other officials in the customer country-have to obey the dictates of the home office even if they know the price of medicines are already beyond the reach of sick people. Or they would be fired, demoted, or transferred.
But couldn't the government of the customer nation do something to provide its constituents relief from the high medicine prices? Yes it can, of course. As a sovereign country, it can give local pharmaceutical companies authority to manufacture equivalent medicines. When a patent for a certain medicine expires, other companies are free to manufacture their own generic versions. Or the government can allow companies to import the medicine from countries where it is sold cheaper. Or the government itself can do the importation, which is what the Philippine International Trading Center (PITC), a Philippine government corporation, is trying to do.
Pfizer's patent for Norvasc will expire on June 13, 2007. It usually takes 18 months for our Bureau of Food and Drugs to register a drug with an expired patent under the name of another company that intends to manufacture it. Thus, the PITC and local drug companies have applied for registration of their own brand of amlodipine besylate so that when Pfizer's patent expires next year, they would be ready to manufacture their own versions-or import cheaper versions, in the case of the PITC. But Pfizer would have none of it. It has filed, before the Makati Regional Trial Court, a case for patent infringement against the PITC and BFAD. But no pharmaceutical company has yet manufactured a single tablet on amlodipine besylate. Neither has the PITC bought or sold a single tablet. So what is there to restrain?
"We have informed Pfizer that we have no intention of (importing and selling amlodipine besylate) until after the Pfizer patent expires on June 13, 2007," said Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan, president and chair of the PITC. But Pfizer filed the civil suit anyway because the case is not really "about protecting patent rights but about maintaining a monopoly beyond the patent life." In asking the court to revoke the Parallel Import Drug Registration of the PITC and enjoining the BFAD from entertaining applications by generic companies for registration of amlodipine besylate, Pfizer seeks to extend its monopoly over the product by at least 18 months. This is the period it will take the BFAD to evaluate an application for drug registration by a generic company. The 18 months of extended monopoly translates to P2.39 billion of additional sales for Pfizer even after the expiration of its patent, Pagdanganan said. But it could mean the death or maiming of thousands of Filipinos who could suffer heart attacks and strokes because they cannot afford to buy amlodipine besylate.