Senator Mar Roxas' speech at Zydus Philippines, Inc.

At the outset, we welcome the entire Zydus team, led by their Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ganesh Nayak. Although they've been in operations here for a number of months already, his presence indicates the importance their company gives to the Philippines. As former Trade Secretary, I feel it incumbent upon me to say something about their company, and the impact, the consequence of their presence, of their Chief Executive Officer here in the country, and what this means as well for the competitive environment for pharmaceuticals in the country.

The total Indian pharmaceutical business is in the neighborhood of $11-$12 billion. So Zydus, with $850 million, about a billion dollars by the end of this year, is about 10% of the entire pharmaceutical industry. So they are big boys, big players, with massive influence and massive resource relative to research and development, relative to product development, and relative to distribution, not just in India, but as you have seen in the presentation, all across the globe. For them to establish an actual presence here in our country, actual offices, is quite important for us, because while they, their company, is about a billion dollars in sales, the entire Philippine pharmaceutical industry is about $2 billion. One company in India, no. 5 largest company in India, is equivalent to one-half the entire Philippine pharmaceutical industry, which is about $2 billion.

So to have the presence of a big player with resources, not just natural resources, but resources relative to research development, product development, marketing, coming in, to the Philippine market, is going to have tremendous impact on the competitive terrain. That is one of the objectives we have in bringing down prices of medicines, by fostering more competition here in our country. So thank you very much, Dr. Nayak and the entire Zydus team for looking upon the Philippines as a market and as a place important enough for you to come in in a big way. So thank you for your presence here.

Friends, ladies and gentlemen, even as we are here celebrating this advance in our fight for cheaper, affordable medicines, I looked up a few statistics on the way here and note that in the course of this year, some 17,000 Filipinos are going to die because of diabetes. Another 70,000 Filipinos this year are going to die because of hypertension and related illnesses. And countless thousands others are going to die because of tuberculosis. And one might say that many of these deaths are entirely preventable, are entirely unnecessary. And although these illnesses are present and are very real, because of advancement in medicine, there are now drugs available to moderate, temper the bad effects of these illnesses on the human, and in effect, postpone death by years if not decades later.

So kawawang-kawawa ang ating kababayan na namamatay lamang, kawawang-kawawa sila na lalong gumagrabe ang kanilang mga sakit dahil lamang sobrang mahal ang mga gamot dito sa ating bansa. And let me just give you one current example. As I was going around during the lunch, I saw Mario over here, who covers the Senate for the Manila Bulletin, and he was talking to me about how expensive his medicine was, which was about P125 per tablet. Well, that P125 per tablet is now going to be competed with by a product that will be P25 per tablet. Think about that: this no-clot product is P25 per tablet. In fact, what Mario was spending for one day, he will now be spending for 5 days. Equal therapeutic benefit to him. That is how expensive medicines are in our country. And so on top of all of these tragic deaths, on top of all the illness that is here in our country, simply because medicines here are so expensive, we have the very idea that, talagang hindi fair dito sa ating bansa, dahil ang mga mahihirap, dahil yung mga may sakit, sila pa ang napipilitang maglabas ng napakalaking pera para lamang makainom sila ng gamot para sa kanilang karamdaman.

My friends, I say to you, this is the good fight. This is a worthwhile fight. This is a fight that we must fully apply ourselves to. We've been fighting this for 10 years now. The pharmaceutical industry, apart from those in this room, have hit us, black propaganda, text brigade and so on and so forth, so that we will stop pushing for the Cheaper Medicines bill. But we stood our ground, we held fast, we passed it finally into law, and now it is up to the DoH to properly implement it.

Just think: how many deaths could have been prevented if we had been able to pass this into law earlier, or if the DoH, the government itself, could have implemented this as they are. We will be implementing this more vigorously, more forcefully, more aggressively, than what we are feeling today. Kawawang-kawawa tayo, Itong mga karamdaman, may mga sagot naman ditog gamot, lamang, sobrang mahal at hindi na abot-kaya.

With the entry now of companies such as Zydus, bringing in more competition in our country, there will be a moderating effect of these high prices, and this is the start of the impact of this law, to bring down medicine prices in our country.

We must continue this fight. If, as they say, in the video that was very, very inspiring, if as they say that the destiny of a person is dependent on what that person does, then surely the destiny of our nation, the destiny of our country, is also dependent on what we, the citizens, do. We must come together, to continue this fight, to bring the cost of medicine down, to bring down the cost of health care in our country.

This is our goal: better health care through cheaper medicines, which is a building block to our vision, which is, dignity for all and pantay-pantay ang laban para sa lahat ng Pilipino. Hindi pantay ang laban kung ang mayayaman lamang ang nakaka-afford nitong mga mamahaling gamot. Pantay ang laban kung lahat ng Pilipino ay makakabili ng mga gamot na ito sa abot-kaya.

We welcome Zydus here, to join us in this fight, to bring down the cost of medicine in our country, to provide Filipinos with affordable health care, with quality medicine, and in so doing, we are able to make real our vision of a Philippines and a Filipino that is healthy and that actualizes our best potentials. Thank you very much and welcome. Magandang hapon po.