Rose Pharmacy: "Botica ng Bayan" concept needs further study

Cebu-based drug store chain Rose Pharmacy continues to explore possibilities if it could possibly adopt the "Botica Ng Bayan" concept of the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) to provide cheaper medicine products to the Philippine market.

Rose Pharmacy vice president for finance Rosemarie L. Wong said the company will have to embark first on an extensive study before accepting the government's challenge, because she said most doctors and medical professionals in the Philippines still prefer branded drug products.

Rose Pharmacy, which has close to 100 network chain of outlets nationwide, is closely competing with big chains like Mercury Drugs and a few others.

"We are still studying that concept [Botica Ng Bayan], most doctors are still prescribing branded medicines," Wong said in a recent interview.

Meantime, she said its chain of pharmacy stores across the country would maintain the same format, providing mostly branded drug products.

Earlier, PITC chairman and president Roberto M. Pagdanganan urged members of the Drugstore Store Association of the Philippines (DSAP), including Rose Pharmacy, to join hands with the government and bring down the cost of medicines by half as soon as a new system will be implemented.

The Philippines is tagged to have the most expensive cost of medicine in the world, thus 70 percent of sick Filipinos remain untreated and eventually die because of very expensive price of medicines.

Pagdanganan asked the cooperation of the DSAP members to join hands with the government in its bid to break the monopoly of medicine distribution and retailing the country which cause very high prices of medicine products here.

Wong said in order to accept this challenge Rose Pharmacy still has to see the market pulse through an extensive study, to protect its competitiveness.

Pagdanganan mentioned that one of the main reasons why the Philippines has the most expensive medicine price in the world it's because 80 percent of the distribution system is controlled by one company, the Zuellig Pharmaceutical Inc.

He said Zuellig has also created a sister company to operate majority of the manufacturing tie-up with multinational pharmaceutical companies, thus controlling the dragon share of the distribution channel.

Also he said this company is also closely coordination with the largest drugstore chain the Philippines that is why price of medicines is allegedly cartelized.

Branded medicines account for 97 percent in terms of availability in the country, he said promoting generic medicines, which cost much lower is being discouraged by these companies controlling the almost entire distribution and retailing chain, he said.

PITC is now moving to introduce alternative drugstore, through the "Botika Ng Bayan" program initiated by the Arroyo government to make price of medicines in the country at par with other countries in the world.

Pagdanganan added PITC is now sourcing its importation of medicines, including branded ones from India, and mentioned that it is still looking for other source country to provide affordable medicines to Filipinos.

PITC's move called the "parallel importation" is a stop-gap measure in order to break the monopoly of medicine products distribution in the country, thereby bringing down the cost at least by half.

To bravely break the cartel system, Pagdanganan urged members of DSAP in the Visayas and Mindanao to be accredited as one of the "Botika Ng Bayan" outlets in order to sell highly affordable medicines.