PARLIAMENT | The Health Ministry is undertaking efforts to address a rise in prices of pharmaceutical products through a policy that promotes transparency between manufacturers and the government.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said his ministry will table a policy to compel pharmaceutical companies to present related manufacturing costs and prices of their medications to the government.
"This is price transparency. I want to bring a policy where pharmaceutical companies must present to the government prices of their products sold…
"Because there is no price transparency, we… don't actually know the real manufacturing costs of the medications," he said.
Khairy (above) was responding to a supplementary question from Mohd Salim Sharif (BN -Jempol) in the Dewan Rakyat today, urging the government to investigate the reasons behind the high price of cancer and leukaemia medication.
"We will be bringing a paper to implement a medicine price transparency mechanism in Malaysia, so we can determine what would be a fair and reasonable cost for selected medications," he said.
Khairy explained that a factor to determine the price of medication is a company's intellectual property or patent and steps are in place for the government to prevent the process of "evergreening".
"Evergreening is when a pharmaceutical company made minor modifications to the medicine and applies for a long extension of its patent, preventing generics from being manufactured and keeping prices high," said Khairy.
Salim also asked for the government's strategy to stabilise the prices of ingredients used to make medications.
In response, Khairy said the government will turn to alternative sources if there is any disruption to the global supply chain.
Further, the minister said the government will only directly intervene to control market prices as a last resort. - Mkini
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