Higinio P. Porte, Jr., Philippine Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association president, said: “We hope to maintain certain margins. We cannot… be on the losing end. If we are only getting half of the standard margin, we will need to raise prices.”ng in Makati City last week, said surging production costs are mainly due to the weak peso.
“The cost of the raw materials and packaging materials increased by as much as 20% but we have to absorb that because we cannot just increase the price of medicine. It would be harder for consumers to afford the medicine. We are absorbing it for the meantime, hoping that this will normalize eventually,” Mr. Porte said.
The peso closed at P57.23 against the dollar on Friday, strengthening from the Thursday level of P58.19. The peso is coming oAccording to Mr. Porte, key imports include active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are “all imported. The only materials that are sourced locally include sugar, alcohol, and herbal pharmaceutical material likeMr. Porte added that the Marcos administration should promote the export of domestically manufactured herbal drug products.
“One low-hanging fruit is to tap local requirements and export herbal drug products that only the Philippines can produce. It needs to be competitive globally in terms of safety and efve to seven years and a huge amount of investment. We are currently working with the Department of Science and Technology to 10 herbal medicines,” Mr. Porte said.
PPMA’s members include Pascual Laboratories, Inc., Hizon Laboratories, Inc., Lejal Laboratories, Inc., Lloyd Laboratories, Inc., Interphil Laboratories, and Premier Creative Packaging, Inc. —