THE Malaysian Health Coalition (MHC) has called for the Government to strengthen the country’s local capacity of pharmaceutical goods manufacturing to minimise the impact of supply chain disruptions.
Malaysia is currently a net importer of pharmaceutical products in three categories, namely finished pharmaceutical products, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and pharmaceutical intermediates for local manufacturing.
However, the two-month hardcore lockdown in Shanghai, China, and Russia’s war in Ukraine have sparked major shortages of various prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medications in Malaysia, according to news reports.
“Therefore, we must strengthen our local capacity of pharmaceutical goods manufacturing to minimise the impact from future disruptions,” said the coalition in a statement undersigned by 32 organisations and individuals.
“This must be accompanied by good manufacturing practice (GMP) to ensure all locally manufactured medicines meet the required standards of safety, quality and efficacy, in line with Malaysian National Medicines Policy.
“The Government must provide a favourable policy, tax and regulatory climate for private sector investment in this sector.”
The coalition also urged the Government to streamline the approval process for alternate purchase and medicines requiring special authorisation in Health Ministry (MOH) facilities.
“Malaysia procures medicines from alternate suppliers or with special authorisation from the health director-general or senior director of pharmaceutical services in two situations: when original suppliers cannot fulfil the orders or when medicines are not listed in the MOH Medicines Formulary,” it noted.
“Alternate suppliers and special authorisation are necessary during shortages. Therefore, the approval process for these regulations should be streamlined to improve efficiency and reduce the waiting period for decisions.”
According to MHC, this is important especially during situations posing public health risks such as medicines shortage, especially during an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
MHC further stressed the importance in strengthening the collaboration between public and private sectors through medicine stock loans and medicine utilisation data-sharing.
“Collaboration between the public and private sectors should be promoted to improve healthcare delivery to patients,” it opined.
“These collaborations need transparent data-sharing, especially on prices and medicines utilisation. MOH must lead and coordinate the medicine utilisation data collection process to improve current medicines procurement strategy and prioritise distribution of medicines to facilities with higher demands.
“We urge the Government to take immediate short-term and long-term actions to ensure the sustainability of medicine supply. This is crucial to ensure the health of the rakyat.” – June 27, 2022
