The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) on Tuesday, January 30, revealed the list of medicines exempted from value added tax (VAT) for diseases such as cancer, hypertension, tuberculosis, diabetes, and mental illness.

The BIR said its memorandum was based on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Department of Health’s (DOH) instructions.

The directive would change the VAT-exempt products under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law and the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act.

Meanwhile, BIR removed Macitentan film-coated tablets from the list after the health agency’s directive.

“The pharmacologic category of Macitentan is an endothelin receptor antagonist (ERA) with an approved indication for targeted pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) therapy which is not synonymous to systemic hypertension,” DOH said in its statement.