ROXAS LAUDS HOUSE ACTION ON MEDICINES BILL

Senator Mar Roxas lauded the House of Representatives for hurdling discussions at the committee level on its bill to provide quality affordable medicines.

"I am pleased with the good news that the House is moving forward with its bill that will provide our people with more affordable medicines of high quality," Roxas, primary author of the Senate's counterpart bill, Senate Bill 1658, said.

"This is a leap forward which I'm sure will go a long way to making up for the bill's non-passage in the last Congress," the Senate trade committee chairman added.

A similar bill was passed at the Senate in the 13th Congress, but the House failed to pass its version of the bill due to absence of a quorum.

Roxas said he expected the House to have a committee report and discuss the matter in plenary soon after. The Senate had approved SB 1658, sponsored by Roxas, last Tuesday.

"I await the upcoming dialogues between both Houses, so that we can come up with the best combination of measures that should serve only one purpose - to provide Filipinos access to quality affordable medicines," he said.

"I am keeping an open mind on what will give the people the best law possible. I hope the House is as receptive to our ideas as well," Roxas added.

SB 1658 provides amendments to the Intellectual Property Code for the parallel importation of more affordable medicines from abroad; support to the generics industry by adopting the "early working" principle and to disallow the grant of new patents on grounds of "new use;" and ample muscle to the government through a framework for government use and compulsory licensing.

The bill also seeks to strengthen the Bureau of Food and Drugs to serve as a counterfoil to attempts to bring in fake or substandard medicines by allowing BFAD to retain its operating income from fees and other charges so it could upgrade its facilities and beef up its human resources.

The substitute bill also reiterates the President's power, patterned after the Price Act, to impose drug price ceilings in times of calamity, public health emergencies, illegal price manipulation and other instances of unreasonable drug price hikes.