The real dose: why drug prices matter

The real dose: why drug prices matter

As organisations committed to advancing the cause ofaffordable medicines across the developing world, wefeel compelled to respond to the recent opinion piecepublished in the Bangkok Post on Nov 21: "A dose ofreality about drug prices" by Philip Stevens.

Unfortunately, the author and the International PolicyNetwork continue to serve the agenda of the globalpharmaceutical industry by suggesting that the issueof drug prices is irrelevant to the health status ofpoor people.

Millions of men and women in developing countries makegreat sacrifices to buy the medicines needed forthemselves and their families, and the examples ofThailand and the Philippines are proof that the priceof medicine is highly relevant when it comes toincreasing access and saving lives.

First take the dose of reality in Thailand. More than551,000 Thai people have died of Aids since theepidemic began in the kingdom in 1984. Four years ago,Thailand's health system had all the doctors, nursesand health centres it needed to provide antiretroviraltreatment for people with HIV/Aids. However, becausethe medicines cost over 33,330 baht per patient permonth, only 3,000 people were getting treatment. In2002, the Thai government, exercising rights enshrinedin the Doha Declaration, launched a generic version ofHIV/Aids triple therapy, resulting in a 28-fold dropin the cost of treatment. Thanks to this, 84,000people with HIV/Aids are today receiving treatment.

The fact that there has been no increase in doctors,nurses, or hospitals in Thailand during the last fouryears shows clearly that the cost of treatment was theonly issue at stake.

And here is the dose of reality in the Philippines.Consider that Filipino families on average use 45% of medicines in the Philippines are the second highest inAsia and, according to a 2002 WHO report, 70% ofFilipinos have no regular access to essential drugs.The top 10 medicine earners are all patented. Trytelling a poor Filipino then, that the price they haveto pay at the drugstore is really not the issue!

While the pharmaceutical industry argues that weshould all ignore the high cost of medicines, they aretaking developing country governments such as Indiaand the Philippines to court for trying to use theirlegal right to access cheaper generic medicines.

Meanwhile, countries like Thailand are being pressuredthrough the US-Thai Free Trade Agreement to imposestricter intellectual property rules in order topreserve pharmaceutical monopolies.

Of course, developing countries need to invest moreresources into their public health delivery systems.But to argue, as Mr Stevens does, that the battle toreduce drug prices is therefore a mistaken effort, isat best fuzzy thinking, and at worst, highly damaging.Despite what pharmaceutical companies would have usbelieve, there is ample evidence to show that reduceddrug prices have made a positive contribution toincreasing access to healthcare for poor people. Thefact is that this dose of real reality sometimes canbe hard to swallow.

AIDS ACCESS FOUNDATION
Foundation for Consumers, Thailand
FTA Watch, Thailand
Health and Development Foundation, Thailand
Medecins sans Frontieres, Thailand
Oxfam, East Asia
Programme for HIV Prevention and Treatment
Professor Jiraporn Limpananont, Faculty ofPharmaceutical Sciences,Chulalongkorn University
Thai Network of People Living with HIV and Aids
Third World Network, Malaysia",