Sunday, May 27, 2007

Price relief for hypertensive Filipinos

Nearly eight million Filipinos have hypertension. Stressfully high medicine prices worsen their ailment. But relief is probably in sight. The state-owned Philippine International Trading Corp. is seeking to void the local patent of the hot-selling hypertension drug Norvasc. And it has strong legal basis for it. Norvasc sells for P41.41 per 5-mg tablet in the Philippines. Senator MAR Roxas says the same Norvasc formulation retails in India for only P5.77. The PITC should be allowed to legally import from India, he adds, "to benefit 7.76 million hypertensive Filipinos." (ABS-CBN Interactive)

EVEN if Congress is on recess due to the elections, there is a sustained effort to hasten the approval of Senate Bill (SB) 2263 which seeks to lower the prices of medicines, said Senator Manuel "Mar" Roxas III. "Even if Congress is in recess for the national polls, we, together with fellow legislators across party lines, our staff and various stakeholders are engaged in constant consultations in order to build a consensus on the lower priced medicines bill," he said.
(Sun.Star Manila)

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