Transcript of Senator Mar Roxas' speech for the adoption of the bicam report on the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008

My distinguished colleagues, I am very honored to report to you that the bicameral conference committee to resolve the disagreeing provisions between the House and Senate versions pertaining to "An Act To Provide For Quality Affordable Medicines," has concluded satisfactorily and successfully. We have a conference committee report that was signed unanimously by the three Senate conferees, namely Chairman Ponce Enrile of the Senate Committee on Finance, Chairman Pia Compañera Cayetano of the Senate Committee on Health, and yours truly representing the Committee on Trade and Commerce. As regards the House of Representatives, their chairman as well as 11 of their 12 members have signed the committee report favorably - nine yeses unqualified, two yeses with reservations reiterating the House's desire to reinstitute the 'generics-only' provision that they had fought for so assiduously, and one had no vote. So out of 12 conferees, there are nine unqualified yeses, two with reservations relative to 'generics-only' and one with no vote.

Mr. President, there is a joint explanatory statement, and we have submitted this to the secretariat. I ask that this be read on to the record - the Conference Committee on the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill 1658 and House Bill 2844, after having met and fully discussed the subject matter, hereby report to their respective houses the following.

The salient provisions of the legislation provide for increased competition that will lead towards a lowering of prices as well as assuring quality medicines for our people. Salient features include strengthening the domestic generics industry through two provisions, two amendments to the Intellectual Property Code. One is the 'no new use' provision, which will disallow the 'ever-greening' of patents simply by discovering new uses, meaning, if there is no new element or there is no new particular ingredient that is introduced, then the twenty-year protection expires as originally concepted.

The other provision that helps the local generics industry is the provision that allows them 'early working,' meaning, before the expiry of the patent. The local generics industry can already begin their preparations, their experimentation and their testing so that they can have a ready competing product on the day of patent expiry. This will help our local generics industry provide increased competition by helping them have competing products earlier.

The second salient feature of the bill is the parallel importation program in the amendments to the Intellectual Property Code. We have adopted the regime that is adopted by the majority of the other countries in the world, the so-called 'international exhaustion' regime for recognition of patent expiry. In this vein, if a particular medicine is sold in another country at a more affordable price, the law would allow clearly and straightforwardly allow the importation of the same so that competition can be provided domestically.

A third feature of the bill, Mr. President, strengthens the BFAD by allowing them to keep their income, so that they can process applications for introduction of competing products and other new medicines in a much more timely fashion.

A fourth feature of the consolidated version of the bill, Mr. President, is the nondiscriminatory clause which mandates that all drugstores carry these competing products, so that in fact, they will not be intimidated by the large multinational pharmaceutical companies to not carry competing products in their inventory.

And the last feature of the bill is the price monitoring and control mechanism which provides for the setting of maximum prices for medicines, as recommended by the Secretary of Health and as approved by the President of the Republic. It also provides for the penalties if these maximum prices are not observed.

Those are the five salient features of the consolidated version. We are hopeful that this will lead towards a lowering of prices of medicine. This is not the be-all and end-all towards providing people affordable quality medicines and health care, but certainly this is an important first step. I'd like to thank our conferees, particularly Senator Ponce Enrile and Senator Pia Compañera Cayetano for all the hours they have spent in the negotiations with their House counterparts on this matter. I also wish to thank the chamber which has so steadfastly and assiduously supported the concept and the program of lowering prices of medicines in our country. We now have a consolidated version that is ready for signing by the President into law. That will be a major step towards providing affordable quality health care for all.