Medicine manufacturers have offered to reduce their prices to the public by as much as 75 percent for around 150 medicines that cover 36 disease categories.
“It is actually at these levels of prices which we have been selling to the government in bulk in the past years. Several of our members are prepared to extend these same price reductions to the public if the Department of Health will agree,” said Teodoro Padilla, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines executive director.
Among the diseases covered for straight price reductions to the public are those for heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, asthma, psoriasis, neurologic disorders, HIV, and infectious diseases, among others.
Also being offered voluntarily are price reductions for medicines for various types of cancer, such as breast, colorectal, lung, cervical, kidney, ovarian, lymphomas, and prostate, among others.
These price 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.