Biopharmaceutical leader Takeda Healthcare Philippines has recently concluded its Access to Medicines Summit held in Makati, envisioning universal health coverage made accessible to all without creating any financial hardships by 2030.

With the overarching theme of "Onward to a Transformed Healthcare System by 2030," the event was joined by stakeholders across the healthcare sector to share best practices, identify possible opportunities for collaboration, and fulfill their shared aspirations of improving the country's access to healthcare and medicines.

Participants include representatives from the Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of the Interior and Local Government, healthcare professional societies and patient organizations.

The summit is also in collaboration with RiseAboveNow Business Consulting as co-convenor and technical partner.

"The Access to Medicines Summit is an opportunity to bring together the different sectors of the healthcare industry for our unified vision of universal healthcare. Healthcare is one of the fundamental rights of every human being, but it is still incredibly inaccessible in many countries like the Philippines. Through this summit, we hope that everyone will be made more aware of the obstacles we face, as well as what we can do in our respective sectors and as an industry to help realize this goal of universal healthcare," said Takeda Healthcare Philippines country manager Loreann Villanueva.

Dr. Valerie Gilbert Ulep, senior research fellow from the Philippine Institute of Development Studies, introduced several challenges that prevented the realization of universal healthcare in the Philippines, with the biggest one being the procurement of these medicines.

He discussed that some medicines are not made equally available throughout the whole country due to high transaction costs, with certain regulatory, economic and political factors also potentially dis-incentivizing pharmaceutical companies from introducing new drugs in certain areas.