Reshuffling the Deck: The Philippines Turn Vision into Reality
September 02, 2006
What if your country, even amid political turmoil, has been growing at a fast pace over the last several years and keeps doing quite well, but is nevertheless home to more than 14 million people living below the poverty line? What if, given this context, the retail prices of medicines are among the highest in the world and the major distributor is granted the privilege of a near monopoly? And what if, because of a huge predominance of multinational companies, lower-priced generic medicines are struggling to establish themselves (even though you passed a "generic drugs law" back in the '80s)? Well, if you are a proud and committed citizen of such a country and, above all, you deal on a daily basis with pharmaceutical-related issues, you must be very disappointed, if not upset. And yes, it's quite probable that you are a Filipino, as Roberto Pagdanganan, chairman of the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC), is. In fact, for a foreign observer, the problem of drug prices is one of the most..