Time for comprehensive ceiling price for medicines

WE refer to the report “Costly meds a bitter pill to swallow” (The Star, Oct 22). For too long, the prices of medicines in the country have been left unregulated at the expense of consumers who pay out of pocket and the Health Ministry that is providing healthcare for millions of Malaysians.

In 2018, the Health Ministry spent more than RM2.38bil on medicines alone. Now, we find that local companies, which provide staff medical benefits, are paying millions more to private hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.

With non-communicable diseases on the rise, such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases, life-long medications that are very expensive are needed. One major reason for the high prices is the multiple patents on many medicines that create market monopolies for multinational pharmaceutical companies, thereby excluding or delaying the availability of generic medicines.

Research by the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) shows that many of these patents are not worthy of the 20-year monopoly because of the lax standards for granting pharmaceutical patents (including for small changes to an existing medicine, combination of two medicines into one tablet, different dosages and changing from a syrup to tablet form). Without generic medicines in the market, there is no competition to bring prices down.

In a recent case, a patented cancer medicine dropped by more than 50% in price when the last patent expired and a generic version was approved for sale.

The Health Ministry has started a consultation process to establish a price mechanism but it is facing opposition from industry players and private hospitals. The ministry must stand firm for public interest and to ensure that our public health system can continue to serve Malaysians.

CAP calls on the government to put in place a comprehensive price control mechanism for medicines across the entire supply and delivery chain, with one component being the regulation of mark-ups especially in private sector hospitals and chain clinics.

Price transparency and regulation is a growing global call as countries rich and poor are faced with exorbitant costs of medicines.

The government must also address the root cause of many over-priced medicines by tightening the standards and criteria for granting pharmaceutical patents. The ongoing review to amend the Patents Act 2004 is a timely opportunity to prevent “evergreening”, where producers extend their patents over products that are about to expire in order to retain royalties from them.

These are among the recommendations made by the Malaysian Competition Commission in a 2017 study of the pharmaceutical sector. It is high time for action to tackle one major source of the rise in cost of living for Malaysians – unacceptable high prices of medicines.

MOHIDEEN ABDUL KADER President Consumers Association of Penang