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Philippines Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q3 2008
Business Monitor International, Sep 2008, Pages: 81
The Philippines remains ranked tenth in the BMI’s Q308 Business Environment Rankings of 14 key markets in the Asia Pacific region, illustrating limited opportunities and substantial risks to operating in the country despite the high prices of medicines. The market size – of around US$2.6bn in 2007 and with a forecast value of US$4.5bn in 2012 – is relatively unremarkable in global terms, with values further threatened by the recently signed Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008 (previously known as the ‘Cheaper Medicines Bill’). The development has led BMI to upwardly revise its forecasts for the generics market, which is expected to top US$890mn by 2012. However, foreign research-based companies will undoubtedly criticise new legislation as they will lose the right to apply for patents based on newly discovered uses of a known drug, as well as face price caps on various medicines and an increase in parallel imports.
Therefore, regulation remains in need of improvement with the Philippines in 2008 once again featuring on the ‘Watch List’ of countries with a problematic intellectual property (IP) environment, as judged by US drug industry association PhRMA. The country continues to be criticised for the prevalence of counterfeit drugs, among other issues. Given that only 30% of the population in the Philippines enjoy unrestricted access to essential drugs, the situation is unlikely to be significantly improved in the first half of the forecast period at least. The Philippines also has one of the lowest investments in health out of any country in the world, which will continue to negatively impact the development of its pharmaceutical
market.
Other issues facing companies active in pharmaceutical manufacturing and retail include the increasingly challenging operating environment for small and medium-sized (SME) drugstores. One of the key problems is the rising price of basic commodities such as foodstuffs, which is likely to result in lower spending on pharmaceuticals deemed non-essential items. Nevertheless, drugstores are attempting to overcome such problems by amending their layouts, bulk-buying of medicines and pooling staff training exercises. However, it is unlikely that all outlets will be able to deal with such pressures, especially in the face of the strengthening of local currency against the US dollar. An additional problem is the new law stipulating a 20% discount on medicines for senior citizens. However, drugstores are suffering as the government only reimburses 32% of the discount.
On a positive note, a recent report by UK-based charity Save the Children stated that the Philippines as well as Peru is achieving the best results among developing countries in their treatment of childhood diseases and infant healthcare in general. In the Philippines, 31% of children under the age of five are not getting basic healthcare such as vaccines and drugs – the smallest proportion of any country in the ninth annual State of the World's Mothers report. Since 1990 the Philippines has achieved a remarkable 48% reduction in its under-fives death rate.
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