The Pri­vate Phar­ma­cy Re­tail Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (PPR­BA) has ex­pressed grave con­cern over com­ments made last week by Fair Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Be­van Nar­i­nesingh re­gard­ing the Com­mis­sion’s ca­pac­i­ty to en­force com­pe­ti­tion reg­u­la­tions. Nar­i­nesingh told the me­dia that the FTC’s en­force­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties had been con­strained by the ab­sence of a board for the past eight months.

He said the Com­mis­sion re­mained lim­it­ed in its abil­i­ty to take de­ci­sive ac­tion un­til gov­er­nance and fund­ing chal­lenges were re­solved. The is­sue of mo­nop­oly in­flu­ence in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor was raised dur­ing a Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) hear­ing in De­cem­ber by PPR­BA pres­i­dent Glen­wayne Su­chit.

At that hear­ing, Su­chit ques­tioned whether con­sol­i­da­tion in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion was un­der­min­ing com­pe­ti­tion and pa­tient ac­cess.

Fol­low­ing the hear­ing, the Agos­ti­ni Group, one of the com­pa­nies ref­er­enced dur­ing the dis­cus­sions, post­ed a pub­lic no­tice stat­ing that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go is reg­u­lat­ed and com­pet­i­tive. The com­pa­ny stat­ed that there are more than 70 reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­trib­u­tors sup­ply­ing med­i­cines na­tion­wide.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the PPR­BA said that while Nar­i­nesingh cit­ed the ab­sence of a board as a bar­ri­er to en­force­ment, the Fair Trade Act em­pow­ers the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor to in­de­pen­dent­ly in­ves­ti­gate al­le­ga­tions of mo­nop­o­lis­tic be­hav­iour. The as­so­ci­a­tion stat­ed that it lodged for­mal com­plaints with the FTC two years ago and not­ed that no de­ci­sive ac­tion has fol­lowed.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said the ef­fects of reg­u­la­to­ry in­ac­tion are be­ing felt by pa­tients and phar­ma­cies na­tion­wide.
It claimed that a sin­gle en­ti­ty now con­trols more than 70 per cent of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, lead­ing to ris­ing med­ica­tion prices, re­duced mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion and in­creased sup­ply risks.

The PPR­BA al­so ques­tioned the FTC’s over­sight of the 2020 ac­qui­si­tion of Os­car Fran­cois by the Agos­ti­ni Group. It said the Com­mis­sion al­lowed the trans­ac­tion on the ba­sis that no ob­jec­tions were raised, rather than con­duct­ing an in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment of whether the ac­qui­si­tion breached the Fair Trade Act’s 40 per cent mar­ket share thresh­old.

“Phar­ma­cists are strug­gling dai­ly to source safe and af­ford­able life-sav­ing med­ica­tions for pa­tients,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said. “This be­comes near­ly im­pos­si­ble when the mar­ket is dom­i­nat­ed by a gi­ant that ben­e­fits from un­fair ad­van­tages in forex al­lo­ca­tions and reg­is­tra­tion.”

In re­sponse to con­cerns about mo­nop­o­lies, Nar­i­nesingh said mar­ket con­cen­tra­tion in small economies is not un­usu­al.
He said the FTC’s man­date is to de­ter­mine whether a dom­i­nant en­ti­ty is abus­ing its mar­ket pow­er rather than fo­cus­ing sole­ly on mar­ket share.

“Hav­ing a mo­nop­oly it­self is not il­le­gal; it’s the abuse of mo­nop­oly,” Nar­i­nesingh said. “Even if there is a mo­nop­oly, the is­sue is whether this mo­nop­oly is be­ing abused.”