Pimentel: Sanofi must pay back PHL full Dengvaxia contract price of P3.5-B

Sanofi Pasteur should pay back the Philippines the full price of its contract and not just for the unused Dengvaxia vaccines, Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III said Sunday.

"All the vaccines were defective from the very beginning. Therefore, under our laws, we should demand the whole P3.5 billion we paid them and not just part of it," Pimentel said in a statement.

His remarks come after the Department of Health (DOH) demanded Sanofi to refund the P1.4 billion worth of unused vials of the dengue vaccine.

"The Civil Code says you can have a defective product replaced or refunded. Since there is no possible replacement for the vaccine, refund is the only option," Pimentel said.

This mirrors earlier statements of Senator Richard Gordon who said that Sanofi must refund the full contract price of P3.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Pimentel said Sanofi should still be held for the liabilities that may arise from putting more than 800,000 Filipino children at risk even after paying back the full amount of the Dengvaxia deal.

The Philippine government last year said it plans to eventually sue the company.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this month also ordered the suspension of the Dengvaxia product registration and slapped Sanofi with a P100,000 fine.

The Senate blue ribbon panel is currently investigating the allegedly hasty government plan to administer Dengvaxia to hundreds of thousands of school children.

For its part, Sanofi said it has not been negligent in terms of the administration of its anti-dengue vaccine.

"We have not seen any default or any negligence on the part of the company but of course, we keep monitoring our products. Each time we see an adverse event we communicate," Sanofi vice president Thomas Triomphe said in December. —Jon Viktor D. Cabuenas/ALG, GMA News