The pharmacy channel in Malaysia has been growing faster than other healthcare channels since 2007, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.25% according to IMS Health data. The growth of pharmacies is due to an increasing number of retail outlets, more trained pharmacists, and patients becoming more comfortable obtaining medications directly from pharmacists. However, multinational pharmaceutical companies will need to adapt to Malaysia's changing healthcare landscape which includes a push to separate medication dispensing from physician offices to retail pharmacies. This will increase pressure on brand name drugs that traditionally relied on doctor prescriptions.
1. The Pharmacy Channel Emerges in
Malaysiaâs Evolving Pharma Climate
A national cancer strategy has been
implemented, thanks to the HPB.
Health checks for hypertension, high
cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity are
now ongoing in government clinics.
Pharmacists are being prepared to play
a more significant role in improving
the health of the Malaysian people.
All of this is being played out against
the backdrop of a public health sys-
tem and pharmaceutical market that
continues to demonstrate strong fun-
damentalsâfast-growing disposable
income levels, for example, as well as
a pharma market still in a growth cy-
cleâin the ASEAN region.
Throughout Malaysia,progress contin-
ues to be made on the upgrade and
construction of some 500 new health
clinics and community clinics, sev-
eral new hospitals, and approximately
100 additional mobile clinics. Medi-
cal tourism, for its part, continues to
benefit from tax incentives,a respected
national accreditation scheme desired
to ensure quality standards, and a re-
cent stipulation in Singapore that al-
lows citizens to use their Medicare
contribution in Malaysia. Private in-
surance, bolstered by favorable new
tax measures, is on the rise. Original
brands, especially in such therapeutic
markets as psycholeptics, antineoplas-
tics, anti-asthma, and cholesterol-low-
ering agents, dominate the Malaysian
pharmaceutical market in which nine
of the top ten manufacturers are mul-
tinational companies.
There are, of course, challenges. The
government has been forced to re-
spond to increasing budgetary pres-
sures, for example, by proposing a
new national health insurance scheme
that will certainly encourage greater
adoption of generics, while private
insurers, for their part, are on parallel
cost containment paths. With formal
price control mechanisms now being
proposed for the Malaysian National
Medicines policy and blockbuster pat-
ents expiring, the Malaysian pharma-
ceutical market is set to grow at 6%
between 2010 and 2014ânot the el-
evated pattern of a few years ago, but
a signifier, nonetheless, of continuing
stability.
Optimizing resources
For many reasons, then, Malaysia is a
market in which both local and mul-
tinational organizations are steadily
exploiting a range of new resource
optimization optionsâmoving toward
nuanced initiatives designed to exploit
emerging opportunities in both the
ethical (branded/generics) market and
the OTC/consumer medicines space,
to optimize headquarters and field ac-
tivities, and to realign sales forces and
channel resource allocation in general
so as to increase productivity.
Much interest currently revolves
around the Malaysian pharmacy sec-
tor (~300 Million USD in value),
which, by the MAT/Q3 2010*
with
a 2007-2010 CAGR of 12.25%, was
outperforming both the government
and general practitioner sectors with a
10.60% and 6.43% CAGR respective-
ly, according to the IMS Plus Database
MAT/Q3 2010. Importantly, original
branded drug sales through retail phar-
macies represented more than 15% of
the total pharmaceutical market in
Malaysia in 2009, contributing to over
half the total market growth in the
2008-2009 timeframe.
While the economic downturn may
have partially contributed to the faster
growth in the pharmacy channel,there
have in addition been other sustainable
fundamental shifts as well â increas-
ing number of retail outlets (currently
~3000 in Malaysia), larger number of
available trained pharmacists and a
more educated patient that is comfort-
able by-passing GPs to directly visit
their neighborhood pharmacist for a
variety of ailments.
An increase in the number of trained
pharmacists accounts, in part, for this
development. But so do efforts now
being made to end a long tradition of
general practitioners dispensing medi-
cines from their own offices. Pilot ini-
tiatives in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and
By Navin Swaroop, Senior Consultant, APAC & Anand Srinivasan, Engagement Manager, APAC
Itâs been more than four years since the Malaysian government launched its
Health Promotion Board (HPB),an organization commissioned,among other
things, to promote a healthy lifestyle among Malaysiaâs 29 million people and
to help stem the onset of such conditions as diabetes, cardiovascular disease,
infectious diseases, and cancer.
* MAT refers to Moving Annual Total.