MULTINATIONAL pharmaceutical companies may have failed to reduce prices of 21 essential medicines by at least 50 percent as required under the cheaper medicines law but they included 23 medicines whose prices they promised to cut 10 to 50 percent, an official of the Department of Health said yesterday.

"The pharmaceutical companies provided an ‘add-on’ of 23 pharmaceutical products. We are checking the list and soon as we have finished we will submit it to Malacañang for approval," said Dr. Robert So, DOH national drug program manager.

So noted among the 23 are drugs for treatment of hyperthyroidism, anti-cancer, anti-hypertension, medicines for lowering of cholesterol, vitamins, and other over-the-counter medications.

He confirmed that pharmaceutical companies were only able to meet the price reduction target of 15 medicines out of the 21 commonly used medicines recommended by the DOH to be placed under the maximum retail price executive order to be signed by President Arroyo.

"We finished our validation process on Monday night and there were six molecules that were not included by the pharmaceutical companies. As it stands now, we have exhausted our options already and definitely this will be recommended for the maximum retail price (MRP) executive order," So said.

Sen. Mar Roxas sought a parallel Senate inquiry into what he called unfair corporate practices of American giant drug firm Pfizer Inc. to thwart the implementation of the one-year-old cheaper medicines law.

Roxas, the primary author of the Universally Accessible, Cheaper and Quality Medicines law (R.A. 9502), earlier asked the US government to investigate Pfizer’s possible violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in relation to its unethical efforts to influence the Philippine legislature and the government into weakening the law.

In Senate Resolution No. 1202, Roxas said it is necessary to look deeper into the unjust trade and marketing techniques of multinational pharmaceutical companies, particularly Pfizer, that have "obstruct(ed) the free market from dictating just and reasonable prices of medicines in favor of Filipino consumers."

"Pfizer Inc. has apparently continued with its lobby efforts to derail and impede the swift implementation of the law", he said, adding that Pfizer had allegedly offered five million discount cards (Sulit cards) and promotional posters endorsing the discount cards with President Arroyo and Health Secretary Francisco Duque’s photos in the posters, obviously to influence the president against signing the executive order on the maximum retail price.