Duterte signs EO on drug price cap

President Rodrigo Duterte has signed an executive order setting maximum retail price on certain medicines, a top Malacañang official said Monday.

Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said Duterte signed EO 104, which is aimed at improving the Filipinos’ access to affordable medicines.

The Department of Health (DOH) earlier said its price regulation proposal covered medicines for hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung diseases, neonatal diseases and major cancers, high cost treatments for chronic renal disease, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Prices of selected medicines are expected to have a mean reduction of 56% from the prevailing market prices once the EO takes effect, the DOH said in September last year.

The Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines had opposed the measure, arguing that price regulation will kill small retailers in the country and force manufacturers to reconsider launching new medicines. — Virgil Lopez/RSJ/NB, GMA News