[Ip-health] Asian Journal: Why Filipinos Are Dropping Dead

[Mike Palmedo]

http://www.asianjournal.com/?c=3D123&a=3D11804&sid=3Dc79b0b84175b88f2b2a4cb=
5f8e073270

Why Filipinos are dropping dead

Asian Journal
April 3rd, 2006

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.(INQ7)


--
Mike Palmedo
Research and Web
Consumer Project on Technology
T =96 202-332-2670
F =96 202-332-2673
mpalmedo@cptech.org