PETALING JAYA, July 12 — The Malaysian Organisation of Pharmaceutical Industries (MOPI) has called for increased local production of generic cancer drugs to cut treatment costs.
MOPI executive director Billy Urudra said companies such as Duopharma Biotech Bhd and Novugen Oncology Sdn Bhd – both MOPI members – have made generic cancer treatments available at prices more than 90 per cent lower than branded versions, leading to greater government procurement and expanded patient access.
“Duopharma started their cancer care journey in 2016 and started to introduce drugs that were manufactured locally that provided tremendous cost-savings to the government.
“An example would be a drug called Letrozole which was previously procured at a tender value of RM75 million by the government. When Duopharma brought this drug out and supplied it, the tender value dropped to RM3 million.
“That’s how huge it is – the savings to the government – which indirectly goes to patients. Those buying out-of-pocket, there’s a huge savings,” Billy said at the first National Cancer Congress Malaysia 2024 at Sunway University last June 22.
“Another drug they introduced in 2019, in collaboration with Biocon, Trastuzumab, a targeted therapy biologic. That drug was over RM6,000 per vial. Today, it’s under RM1,000. That huge savings is now passed on to patients and the government.”
Billy also highlighted Duopharma’s generic Imatinib (brand name Trevive), introduced in 2018, which achieved a 27 per cent price reduction compared to the innovator brand. By 2023, savings increased to 94 per cent, translating to over RM12.5 million in savings for the Ministry of Health (MOH).
One of MOPI’s newest members, Novugen, invested over RM190 million to produce generic oncology drugs that have resulted in an average cost reduction of up to 80 per cent for certain lung cancer treatments. The company launched four new oncology drugs in 2022 and 2023: Ontrex 500mg, Gefitinib Tab, Oxaliplatin injection, Deferasirox.
“Obviously we cannot ignore the fact that the big pharma companies are investing huge amounts of money to bring innovative drugs into Malaysia, and that’s important. But where we can localise and use generics and biosimilars, that’s when there would be a huge savings,” Billy said.
Citing IQVIA data, Billy said the cost of cancer drugs has grown from RM454.55 million in 2016 to RM1.08 billion in 2023. “In fact, the prescription drug market is RM9 billion. Cancer drugs alone comprise 12 per cent of the total drug market. So we cannot ignore the cost of drugs for cancer,” Billy said.
Billy said MOPI is working closely with the government to scale up manufacturing of drugs locally. “We hope we can build more Novogens and Duopharmas to support the Malaysian pharmaceutical market, to support the fight against the high cost of cancer drugs.”
According to data from MOPI’s annual survey in 2022 and its National Essential Medicines List (NEML) study in 2023, 65 per cent of generic medicines consumed in Malaysia are locally produced, with one in two Malaysians consuming medicines produced by local manufacturers.
About 47 per cent of the items listed under NEML are produced locally.
