Arya News - According to an expert, the “biggest challenge” in making these treatments more accessible to the public is the slow approval process of the Food and Drug Administration, which is a required step before the drugs can be included in the Philippine National Formulary.
MANILA – New medicines that can treat various types of cancer are now available, but the slow assessment and approval by the government is hindering the public from accessing these treatments, according to the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP).
Speaking to reporters in an interview on Thursday, PHAP President Dr. Diana Edralin noted that breast cancer is the most common newly diagnosed cancer among women in the Philippines, citing a 2023 study by the APAC Women’s Cancer Coalition.
“I think the most unfortunate thing about it is that [breast cancer cases are] diagnosed at the late stage,” she said. “More than half of it is actually diagnosed at stage 3, which is a bit of a challenge.”
“The good news is that there is incredible progress when it comes to breast cancer treatment,” she revealed.
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Edralin pointed out that treatment for breast cancer now includes targeted therapy, which can be infused or injected into the patient, and only affects the area where the tumor is located, unlike traditional chemotherapy that kills all living cells.
According to her, the “biggest challenge” in making these treatments more accessible to the public is the slow approval process of the Food and Drug Administration, which is a required step before the drugs can be included in the Philippine National Formulary.
“This formulary is the list of medicines that can be bought by the government, by the local government unit, regional hospital or DOH (Department of Health) hospital, or PhilHealth (Philippine Health Insurance Corp.),” Edralin explained. “PhilHealth will not pay for a drug that is not in the formulary.”
She added that health technology assessment under the Department of Science and Technology, which determines whether a medicine is worth spending on, is not making enough approvals or recommendations to the national formulary.
“Even if the government has the budget… when it comes to illnesses such as breast cancer, the coverage is still not enough and the available medicines are insufficient. [Because] what we want is, hopefully, what is available in other countries is also available here,” she said.
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Aside from breast cancer, Edralin also pointed out that there have already been advancements in the treatments for lung cancer, liver cancer and lymphoma, but the Philippines is unable to keep up.
“We are significantly slower in comparison [to our neighboring countries],” she said. “It’s one of the red flags of the Philippines that the number of so-called innovative drugs is much, much lower compared to other countries.”
On top of this, she noted that the Philippines is also “significantly behind” when it comes to the amount of government subsidy for innovative medicines compared to other countries.
To address these issues, Edralin said the government should increase the manpower of the DOST and consider adopting the clinical assessment guidelines of other countries, in order to speed up the assessment and approval process of new medicines.
“It will take us a while before we can come up with guidelines, about five to 10 years. If there is a new medicine, for example, in breast cancer… if it is delayed by 10 years, a lot of lives that could have been saved will be lost,” she laments.