In a statement today, Santiago said Hilmi was wrong as other developing countries like India and Thailand had used compulsory licences or “rights of government” to provide cheaper cancer medication for their citizens.
“The government can exercise compulsory licence or rights of government in order to produce locally or import the generic version as a result of public health concerns, even if the innovator medicine has been patented.
“The question here is whether the government has the political will to do so,” he said.
Last Wednesday, Hilmi had said Malaysia did not have permission from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to use “rights of government” for non-communicable diseases such as cancer.
“We have to use other ways of dealing with the high costs, like negotiating with companies. If one company reduces its prices, other companies will reduce them as well,” he said in the Dewan Rakyat.
However, according to Santiago, the WTO itself had said that health emergencies were not the only factor for a country to issue compulsory licences, and that this was a “common misunderstanding”.
Santiago added that it was “beyond ridiculous” that there were no plans to reduce the price of cancer medication as cancer was not a contagious disease.
He said Malaysia’s move two months ago to issue rights of medicine for Sofosbuvir resulted in a drastic 99% decrease in price of Hepatitis C medication, from RM395,000 to RM500.
Adding that half a million Hepatitis C patients would benefit from this move, Santiago said the same should be done for cancer medication.
He said government numbers showed that at any one time, about 100,000 Malaysians would have cancer.
“Private sector research suggests that one in four people will have cancer by the time Malaysians reach the age of 75.
“We have a national cancer crisis and the cost of cancer care is extremely high.”
Pointing out that cancer medication, including chemotherapy, could cost anywhere between RM50,000 and RM300,000, Santiago said it was not about whether a disease was contagious or not.
He added that government allocations for medicine had decreased over the last few years, while the growing number of people depending on public hospitals and the rising cost of medication was forcing hospitals to reduce or even stop giving medicine to patients.