Medicine manufacturers reduce prices

The reductions are generally expected to be felt throughout the supply chain from manufacturers down to both government and private retail drugstores and pharmacies that dispense medicines directly to the public.

Medicine manufacturers are offering to reduce prices by as much as 75 percent for some 150 medicines covering 36 disease categories.

“It is actually at these level of prices that we have been selling to the government in bulk in past years.

Several of our members are prepared to extend these same price reductions to the public, if the Department of Health will agree,” Teodoro Padilla, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines executive director said.

Among the diseases covered for straight price reductions are those for heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, asthma, psoriasis, neurologic disorders, HIV and infectious diseases.

Also being offered voluntarily are price cuts for medicines of various types of cancer, such as breast, colorectal, lung, cervical, kidney, ovarian, lymphomas, and prostate.

The reductions are generally expected to be felt throughout the supply chain from manufacturers down to both government and private retail drugstores and pharmacies that dispense medicines directly to the public.

Padilla added that government hospitals have been the source of the cheapest medicines in the country because they purchase in bulk quantities from pharmaceutical companies.