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THE foreign pharmaceutical companies exercise great
power over our lawmakers. This is dramatically illustrated by the
ups and downs of the Cheaper Medicines Act of the House of
Representatives and its Senate counterpart, the Quality Affordable
Medicines Act.
Last Monday Rep. Riza Hontiveros
Baraquel (Akbayan) told reporters: “Pharma giants like Pfizer,
Wyeth, Eli Lily and GlaxoSmithKline, which are all members of the
lobby group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America,
lobbied the US Trade Rep Office to take a stand against the bill,
including the generics-only provision. Predictably, the US Trade Rep
talked to some legislators last December to lobby against the
bill.” It has also been reported that if the new generics law is
passed, the pharma lobby will get the US government to charge the
Philippine government with violating Intellectual Property Codes.
The foreign companies want to
make it almost impossible to make generic versions of their old
medicines. They are aided by Philippine laws that appear to prohibit
local companies from preparing to manufacture patented medicines
before their foreign-owned patents expire. The proposed law would
end this prohibition.
The drug companies have perfected
the art of preventing local firms from producing generic versions of
a patented drug by simply adding a minor ingredient before the
patent lapses. With the new formulae—new only with the addition of
an uncritical and insubstantial ingredient—the giant foreign drug
companies then renew the patents or obtain new ones.
Obedient to the most rigorous
intellectual property concepts in the West, the Philippines has laws
that do not allow another company to study for replication, much
less prepare to reproduce in its factory, any medicine whose patent
has not lapsed. But since the foreign drug company can always renew
the patent before the old one lapses by adding an insubstantial
ingredient, no generic medicine can ever be legally made here
without the foreign companies’ okay. Preparation to produce means
openly setting up the manufacturing process according to the foreign
patent-holder’s formula. But the mere acts of just writing down
the formula and assembling the materials for its production before
the patent has lapsed are already violations of our intellectual
property law.
In the last two years, the pharma
lobby has opposed the initial efforts of our lawmakers to come up
with a Cheaper Medicines Act. Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. exposed their
scandalous attempts to direct congressmen how to move and vote.
After much hard work, the Senate
passed its version of the law last year. The House passed its
version only recently. Both versions include provisions similar to
those passed by federal and state parliaments in India and Pakistan.
They allow local companies to begin the process of preparing to copy
the formulae of medicines whose patents have not yet expired.
“Generics-only” stricken
out
At the beginning of 2008 the only
problem was that of reconciling the two versions. Until two weeks
ago, the only remaining snag was the “generics only” provision
of the House version. That provision would force all doctors to
write only the generic names of drugs they prescribe to their
patients. The pharma companies vigorously opposed it. The Philippine
Medical Association did so, too.
The Senate’s version does not
have that provision which would unfairly force doctors to prescribe
only the generic version of a drug. This would curtail their freedom
to prescribe what they know to be the more efficacious medicine.
True, some—maybe many—doctors are influenced by the foreign
pharma companies who give them gifts and cover their expenses to
attend professional seminars abroad. But doctors should not be
prevented from prescribing any medicine that they think will cure
their patients.
In any case, last week the House
contingent to the bicameral conference to reconcile the two versions
finally agreed to have the “generics-only” provision taken out.
At this point everyone, except the anti-generics pharma lobby, was
happily certain that there would be a Quality Affordable Medicines
law in a few days.
New bombshell
Then came a new bombshell. The
principal author of the Senate version, Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas
II, complained that “lobbyists”—adverting to lawmakers who
were taking the foreign drug companies’ side—were using one more
reason to prevent the new generic-medicine law from being passed.
This was the provision giving the government power to control the
prices of medicines during an emergency.
The Senate version allows the
President—on the recommendation of the Department of Health—to
set the prices of medicines in an emergency. The House model creates
a price regulatory board that counts with representation from many
sectors, including the pharma industry. The board would be unwieldy
and fractious, vested with private interests.
Sen. Roxas recounted that
“everything was already ironed out, but some are still against it
[the reconciled bill]. They still would not want to approve it, they
are still looking for something to complain about. This might be the
last card of the lobby.”
He appealed to the House
leadership to ratify the bicameral report and have the law passed as
a gift to Filipinos on Labor Day. Thank God, Speaker Prospero
Nograles intervened. He spoke to the House contingent and they
promised to stop blocking passage of the bill.
So it looks like the measure will
be passed by the House tomorrow, Labor Day. But let’s pray hard
the foreign pharma lobby has run out of cards to trump this
much-needed legislation.
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