The Office Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs (OSAPIEA) is pushing for initiatives that would remove three pain points in investing in the pharmaceutical industry as part of efforts to make medicines and medical devices accessible and affordable to Filipinos.
“We hope to attract more investors in the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries by encouraging them to set up their businesses in the country. We will make medicine and medical devices more accessible and affordable to our countrymen,” said Secretary Frederick Go in a speech read by Undersecretary Jose Guillas at a joint briefing on ease of doing business in the pharmaceutical industry.
Go urged government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) to consider his office’s recommendations in the discussions on the regulatory processes in the industry.
Pain point number one, according to Go, the bureaucratic nature of some of the existing processes of the regulatory agencies is causing unnecessary delays.
To eliminate this, Go proposed that government considers the certificates of countries with higher certified standards as compliance with the Philippines’ regulations.
“Given that FDA lacks the manpower and equipment, can we seriously implement this policy? Can we review the tedious processes with the assistance of ARTA and limit the number of required number of signatures related to this?,” Go said.
Go said pain point two is the difficulty for pharmaceutical companies to import and export medicine.
“Industry stakeholders (that have) touched base with my office have often raised their concerns about importing and most specially exporting drugs and food products,” Go said.
He, however, expressed this would be addressed once the administrative orders currently being drafted and finalized by the FDA will be signed by Health Secretary Ted Herbosa before the State of the Nation Address.
Go noted the need to streamline the processes in the approval of export- only registration certificates for pharmaceutical products for FDA evaluation.
He said instead of always doing full and lengthened reviews for all applications for certifications and licenses, applications which have already satisfactorily complied with the requirements of the Asean and other markets such as those already approved by the US FDA should no longer have to undergo local reassessment since they have already passed other stringent regulatory authorities.
The third pain point, Go said, is the difficulty for big and international pharmaceutical companies to operate in the Philippines.
OSAPIEA together with the PEZA and FDA formed a technical working group to make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to set up their operations in ecozones.
“By having (pharmaceutical) companies here, we can create an ecosystem where research and development, clinical trials and manufacturing are conducted in the country,” said Go.
He said apart from technology transfer, there would be an uptick in production which will in turn lower the cost of medicine and medical devices.
“Providing accessible and affordable medicine and medical devices is a noble goal. To realize this, , we need to synergize and work together and (create a conducive) environment for new businesses to invest in the Philippines and for existing businesses who are already here to expand their operations in the country,” Go added.
