(Photo via Facebook/Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad)

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 19): The Ministry of Health (MOH) will no longer award pharmaceutical procurement contracts to just one company, in order to ensure a secure and stable supply of medication in the country.

This decision comes after a disruption in the supply of human insulin in August, caused by reported "production issues" at a local manufacturing plant, Minister of Health Dzulkefly Ahmad told the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday

"When we have a policy that puts all our eggs in one basket, it always carries the risk of situations like this. Moving forward, we will not allow a single contract to be awarded to one company for the supply of critical items like human insulin," Dzulkefly said.

To recap, the MOH had in 2022 awarded a three-year contract to a joint venture between Biocon Sdn Bhd — a subsidiary of India's biopharmaceutical company Biocon Biologics — and Duopharma Biotech Bhd's (KL:DPHARMA) unit, Duopharma Marketing Sdn Bhd (DMktg), to supply Insugen, a recombinant human insulin product developed by Biocon.

Biocon currently operates a manufacturing plant in Johor.

"What happened in August this year is that the Biocon joint venture was unable to supply human insulin to the ministry. Additionally, Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk decided to stop supplying human insulin, which led to this disruption," Dzulkefly said.

To prevent future disruptions in the supply of human insulin, Dzulkefly noted that the government is also exploring insulin analogues.

"We are aware of insulin analogues, but they are about three times more expensive than human insulin," he noted.

Nevertheless, he added that the government will continue to adopt a "negotiation approach," including exploring other medication or anti-hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic agents to diversify supply sources.

Medication expenditure tops RM23b in eight years

Earlier, Dzulkefly said that the MOH had spent RM23.25 billion on medication between 2015 and 2023.

The expenditure in 2023 increased by 30% compared to 2015, reaching RM3 billion, up from RM2.3 billion in 2015, he said.

"This increase in financial allocation reflects the rising prices of medicines, the growing number of patients, and the use of new medications, which are often still under patent and therefore more expensive," he said, adding that spending is expected to continue rising annually.