A huge pharmaceuticals market

THE pharmaceutical market is large—and growing. Worth P47 billion in 1999, it grew to P70 billion by 2003 and is probably worth P100 billion now.

Filipinos have one of the highest per capita consumption of pharmaceuticals in Southeast Asia, spending around P800 per person annually on drugs and medicines, or 50 percent of per capita spending on health.

Only 30 percent of market sales go to local Filipino companies. Multinational drug firms control around 70 percent of sales. It is a market dominated by expensive branded medicines, with prices among the highest in Asia.

Local drug prices are generally two to 30 times higher than in Canada or other neighboring Asian countries.

Cheaper generic products account for just 4 percent of total sales.

Drug distribution is controlled by a few big distributors with most sales generated by wholesale and retail drugstores (85 percent) and the rest by hospital pharmacies.

A single retail chain owns most of the big commercial outlets in large urban centers while single proprietors own most of the small ones in rural and small urban communities.

In 2005, P180.8 billion (3.1 percent of gross national product [GNP]) was spent on health.

The burden of paying for health care is still predominantly shouldered by individual families.

Out-of-pocket expenditures (59.1 percent, or P106.9 billion from personal funds, private insurance, health maintenance organizations, employee-based plans and private schools) are the major source of funds for health, followed by government sources and the National Health Insurance Program under the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

On the average, families spend (in 2000) only 1.9 percent of their annual family expenditures on health care.

The average health expenditure of a family is around P2,660, of which 46.4 percent went to drugs and medicines, followed by hospital room charges (24.1 percent), medical charges including doctors’ fees (21.7 percent), medical goods (3.5 percent) and combined expenses for dental charges, contraceptives and other health services (4.3 percent).

Evidently, the Philippines is still confronted with major challenges in achieving the three goals of a health system: improving health status; developing a health system that is more responsive to the health needs of the people it serves; and ensuring equity in financing health care. –MARIO VILLAVERDE, Manila Times

Dr. Mario Villaverde is Undersecretary for Sectoral Management, Department of Health.