By RAY BUTCH GAMBOA

Philippine Star – January 20, 2007 

It is almost always cathartic to talk with someone who gives public service an untarnished name. When the will to serve goes beyond private, selfish reasons, the result is as refreshing as early morning rain.

I had a brief Q & A with Secretary Obet Pagdanganan, proud son of Bulacan, about the raging issues in the pharmaceutical in­dustry. Though I know the basic issues here, hearing more from abet gave them a different light. Obet Pagdanganan is the presi­dent and chairman of Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC), and it is this agency, with him at the helm, that is currently in the eye of the storm.

First, here's a brief backgrounder on PITC. According to Secre­tary Pagdanganan this agency is not new at all- it was established as a wholly government owned/ controlled entity in 1973 by then President Ferdinand Marcos primarily to promote Philippine ex­ports, particularly to socialist countries. The objective then was to raise the country's foreign reserves. Even then, it was a multi-tasked agency, and one of these, aside from promoting exports, was also to deal with the country's imports. It likewise dealt with counter trade whenever the need arose to offset our dollar outlay for the substan­tial imports undertaken.

Under President Arroyo; the PITC came under the umbrella of the Office of the President, tasked as the lead coordinating agency to bring down the cost of medicines in the country. The PITC is the lead government agency that. is supposed to handle the procure­ment and distribution of these low-priced medicines.

By this time, we could no longer ignore the deafening sounds­ - why were medicines in general significantly cheaper in other coun­tries? Specifically, some medicines were as much as 10 times more expensive here than in India, Pakistan and Thailand. According to the good Secretary, a case in point is Ponstan. abet says that this pain reliever is sold here for about P24-P25 each, while in India, one can buy this very same drug for the equivalent of P3 to P4 each!

The drug that specifically set off the spark that now threatens to blow up into a conflagration is Norvase, a very popular drug among the more senior population. According to Obet, this particular drug is sold locally for P45 each, and, he was shocked to find out that in Pakistan, this was being sold at the equivalent of PhpIO. In India, it was even less - at P7.  Upon finding out that the patent of this par­ticular drug was going to run out soon, Obet said he set out to order 40 tablets of.the 5 mg and 40 tablets of the 10 mg from these coun­tries to find if they were absolutely the same, and they were. Obet says that the PITC is now being sued for patent infringement by the pharmaceutical company making Norvase. Obet explains that in the US, when a patent (which can some­times run up to 70 years) is.set to expire in two to three years time, the competition is already gearing up. Experimentation is already in progress for alternative products. In the case of Norvase, Obet says that the PITC already filed a Certificate of Product Registration in anticipation of the' expiration of the specific patent.

In the Philippines, according to Obet, 80 to 90 percent of the medicines are now off patent, but because the system of distribu­tion on drugs in this country has been cartelized, it is difficult to break into the system. He says that multinational companies con­trol as much as 75 percent of this cartel. 

To address the need for more affordable medicines that are just as accessible, especially to the masses, the Botika Ng Bayan was launched under the auspices of the Philippine Int'l Trading Corp. with a three-fold program: I-To produce more affordable medi­cines; 2-To put up more outlets in the very near future to make these medicines more accessible to a greater number of people; and 3- To launch a mega information campaign to educate the peo­ple on these medicines. Sec. Pagdanganan hopes to let our kaba­bayans know that just because a specific medicine is cheaper does not mean that its efficacy is compromised. Vice versa, just because this medicine is more expensive, it follows that it is better and more efficient.

In the past, this seemed to be a general attitude among us. I must confess that I myself had misgivings about the cheaper drugs that, could be had from Thailand a few years ago, and just bit the bullet with the more expensive ones that could be had locally. 

Generic drugs are the answer to the common folks' woes of med­icines beyond their pockets' reach. With the Botika Ng Bayan out­lets, there is hope that medicines will now be as much as 50-percent cheaper. With this simple math, our country stands to save as much as P5O billion a year, since average annual sales of these pharma­ceutical products go to as much as P80 to PI00 billion, according to Obet.

The Botika ng Bayan concept has apparently rocked the boat for some multinationals. According to Obet, they are now offering Norvase at 50-percent discount.

Anyway, these "BnB" outlets are now mushrooming around the country. To date, there are some 1,263 accredited and full Botika ng Bayan outlets, and medicine costs have been shaved by half. In the news recently, Obet inaugurated.a 24-hour Botika ng Bayan outlet in Pasay City inside the Caltex Star Mart. The indefatigable Secre­tary says that before the year ends, they hope to have some 2,000 full Botika ng Bayan outlets all over the country. And to be sure, these outlets will have full-time pharmacists to man the counter. Now that's not sleeping on the job.

I realize, of course, that there are hidden costs that need to be offset in setting the selling prices of these medicines. Foremost of course is the research and development cost, which is why the pat­ents are long term to protect the developer. A big chunk of the retail price too is marketing and advertising. Being an advertising man myself, I should be the first to realize this. Seeing the tremendous difference in selling prices between us and Thailand, India and Pa­kistan, however, just floors me. How can it be that much? In the three decades that passed, medicine costs have just spiraled, and the Philippines now has the distinction of having the most costly medicines in the world. In the world? A poor country like ours? Are the poorest of the poor just going to die off like flies, simply because they cannot afford medicines for life-threatening diseases? Per Sec­retary Obet, their studies show that as much as 80 percent of Filipi­nos cannot afford to buy medicines now, at the present retail prices. With the Botika ng Bayan outlets, says Obet, they hope to bring down this ratio dramatically. It's about time indeed.