Bitter Pills:Medicines & The Third World Poor | Page 224

Mysoline
100x250 mg tabs.

Taka 27.55
=£0.76

0.88

15

Synalar
ointment 5gm

Taka 10.20
= £0.28

0.30

7

Synalar N
ointment 5gm

Taka 10.63
= £0.29

0.31

6

PFIZER
Terramycin
100x250 mg caps.

Taka 90.50
=£2.51

5.19

106

Terramycin SF
100x250 mg caps.

Taka 95.20
= £2.64

5.39

104

Vibramycin

Taka 39.50
=£1.09

5.48

402

Taka 14.40
=£0.40

1.72

339

10x100 mg caps.

Vibramycin
Syrup 5Omg/5ml/3Oml

Sources:
UK Chemists and Druggists Price List, February 1980. Bangladesh manufacturers price
lists valid February 1980, except Hoechst Bangladesh price list dated 1.8.80. (£1 = Taka 36)
7

Monthly income of rural Bangladeshi family taken as Tk.400 (approx. £11) Prices from: Fisons
Bangladesh Ltd. Price list (1.9.78) and ICI Bangladesh Manufacturers Limited Price list (4.1.80)
effective November 1981 and UK Chemist & Druggist Price List, November 1981. UK family
net monthly income taken as £583.

8

Brudon, op.cit., p.255

9

WHO, "National Policies and Practices in Regard to Medicinal Products; and Related
International Problems", Background Document, A/31/Technical Discussions/1, 6 March
1978. Industry sources also concede that market factors influence prices. For example, Ciba
Geigy's internal write-up of a hearing held as part of a seminar on Third World policies: It
took nearly 45 minutes of persistent questioning for the company to admit that the price at
which drugs are sold from its Basle headquarters to other countries is influenced by market
factors.

10

UNCTAD, Case studies in transfer of technology: Pharmaceutical Policies in Sri Lanka,
(TD/B/C.6/21), United Nations, 27 June 1977. See also Chapter 9.

11

"Merck in Bangladesh Marketing Plan 1980 (-1982)", dated December 1979, forwarded to
E. Merck West Germany by H.G.Brotz, Bangladesh Branch of Emedia Export Co., 22 January
1980, p.13

12

" Prices of drugs in the private sector were uncontrolled and manufacturers charged what the
market would bear." UNCTAD Report Pharmaceutical Policies in Sri Lanka, 1977, op.cit.,
p.6. Also: "The only general conclusion that can be drawn on this issue is lhat TNCs have
charged whatever national markets would bear, and the market power of the leading firms
has enabled them to limit the sales of many important drugs to that part of the population
which could afford the going price-a part of which, in many countries, is very small indeed."
Oscar Gish & Loretta Lee Feller, Planning Pharmaceuticals for Primary Health Care,
American Public Health Association International Health Programs Monograph Series No.2.,
1979. p.25.

13

British National Formulary, 1981, Number 1.

14

500 tablets Valium (5mg) trade price: £6.56; 500 tablets diazepam (5mg) trade price: £3. From
Chemists & Druggist Price List, December 1981.

15

"Wasted spending on brand names increases health costs by £25 million", Daily Telegraph,
27 November 1979.

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