Philippines government under fire over counterfeit medicines

A healthcare advocacy group in the Philippines is taking issue with the government's stance on counterfeit medicines, claiming that its policies are exacerbating the problem.

While the government claims about 10 per cent of the pharmaceutical market in the Philippines is fake, the Samahan Laban sa Pekeng Gamot organisation claims the true figure is three times higher, according to a report in Malay Business Insight.

Samahan claims that counterfeits make up around 60 billion pesos ($1.3bn) of the 200 billion peso Philippines pharmaceutical market, and that the situation is made worse by parallel imports of medicine and the actions of some of the government-run Biotika retail outlets.

The 16,300 Biotika stores in the Philippines have problems restocking medicines from the Department of Health and this encourages them to source medicines from elsewhere, creating a potential entry point for counterfeits into the supply chain. They also tend to stock a wide range of medicines, despite only being supposed to offer a limited list of 42 essential medicines.

Samahan - which has a website here - is a public private partnership of healthcare stakeholders that says it is "committed to educate the public about the proliferation and dangers of fake medicines."

The group operates a database of counterfeit medicines cases, offers an email alert system and runs educational workshops and media campaigns to raise awareness of the trade in fake medicines affecting the Philippines.


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