Patent disputes are hardly out of the ordinary, but the big drugmaker is locked in an interesting battle in this SouthEast Asian nation, where UniLab UniLab is importing and selling a generic version of the best-selling cholesterol drug. The fight centers on a 1995 patent, but the wider context is the cost of medicines, especially since the Philippines imposed maximum retail prices in August.

The Philippines is only the eighth-biggest pharmaceutical market in Asia, but government officials say it has the second-highest prices for many essential medicines in the region, The Peninsula writes, noting this creates big margins for big drugmakers that control almost 70 percent of the $2.5 billion market in the Philippines.

Pfizer was particularly hard hit by the imposition of mandatory price cuts. Most of the 27 products covered by the new price caps are sold by Pfizer, including Norvasc, the country’s best-selling drug by value, and Lipitor, the paper writes, adding that the drugmaker has warned that the price caps could cut revenues in the Philippines by 40 percent this year and trigger layoffs.