Pfizer-led Coalition Against Fake Medicines or Samahan Laban sa Pekeng Gamot (Samahan) said the slow grind of the Philippine judicial system is a major factor in the proliferation of fake medicines in the country.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Pfizer senior director for Global Security/Asia Pacific Region Scott A. Davis cited a tremendous room for improvement in the country’s judicial process to fight against fake medicines.

“The judicial process is slow, it takes 5 to 6 years to reach fruition on certain cases. We need rapid response because this involves health and safety issues of people,” Davis said.

Davis said he has conferred already with officials of the U.S. Embassy in Manila to hook him up with the proper authorities and how they could work together.

“The level of counterfeit medicines in the Philippines has been stable. There is a lot of work to be done, but there is a new administration and new Customs, so I am hopeful and see what we can help,” Davis said.

Davis is targeting the BoC because they are the first line of defense against counterfeit medicines. He said that BoC needs capacity building to be able to detect counterfeit drugs and part of that is training and technology.

Davis said that Pfizer has worked with the judiciary in China to improve regulations and how to strengthen laws against counterfeit drugs.

“No country is immune from it not even the U.S.,” he said. Sources of counterfeit drugs are India, Pakistan, China, and South America. The World Health Organization has estimated the fake medicines to reach $75 billion by 2010.

The coalition (Samahan Laban sa Pekeng Gamot) is also pushing for more awareness campaign versus fake medicines.

Recently, Presidential Proclamation 2082 was signed declaring the third week of November as the National Consciousness Week against Counterfeit Medicines to help raise public awareness on the harmful effects of fake drugs.

The coalition cited an estimate by the Department of Health that 10 percent of the local market today could be accounted for by fake medicines.

According to the coalition, the total legitimate pharmaceutical industry in the country today is estimated at P212 billion.

The Samahan, a multisectoral group consisting of members form the public and private sector, said they are now forging a memorandum of agreement with the government to help monitor and put in place some safeguards to stop fake medicines from further gaining entry into the government’s  parallel drug importation (PDI) program.

The PDI program has been the government’s answer to the high cost of medicines by multinational drug companies in the country and to provide access to cheaper medicines especially for the underserved communities. But, the PDI program has been blamed by the local industry as the main culprit in the proliferation of fake drugs.

Accordingly, there are over 23,100 retail drug outlets in the country including 16,300 government retail stores or the Botica ng Barangay, 4,000 outlets from the Drugstores Association of the Philippines and 1,700 big drugstore chains.

The problem with the Botica ng Barangay is the replenishment of their inventory, which they could source from just any medicine peddlers including fake drugs, the Samahan said.