Section 19C of Republic Act No. 9502 or the Cheaper Medicines Act provides that the Secretary of Health shall have the power to implement any other measures that the government may avail of to effectively reduce the cost of drugs and medicines that shall include, but not limited to, competitive bidding, price volume negotiations, and other appropriate mechanisms that influence supply, demand and expenditures on drugs and medicines.

A pooled procurement system shall address the need for low-priced quality essentials drugs of the public sector, especially the different public health facilities thereby ensuring the successful implementation of the universal health care program of the government and more importantly, that low priced quality medicines are made available in public health facilities or at the point-of-care.

To institutionalize the said mechanism, the DOH drafted an Administrative Order (AO) entitled “Implementing Guidelines for the Pooled Procurement for Drugs being Procured by the Health Facilities”. The said draft AO provides the national guidelines for the implementation of pooled procurement for drugs for health facilities through the PPPI or through its equivalent agency.

Relative thereto, all concerned stakeholders are enjoined to submit comments and recommendations on the draft AO through this link https://bit.ly/AOPooled. The deadline of submission of comments is on August 12, 2022.

May we request for your comments, position papers and/or proposals on the attached draft AO. Kindly submit your comments through email at [email protected]