The story of selling medicine in Malaysia Part 1

A few years ago, the Ministry of Health made a ruling that all medication sold in our country must have a hologram to prove that it is not counterfeit. For those who do not know what is a hologram, just look at your CDs cover, there is a small rectangular piece of shining paper sticking to the plastic cover to prove that the CDs or DVDs are the real things. Now, all medicine boxes have this because of the ruling made afew years ago.( Look at your medicien box – there is a small piece of sliver paper sticking to the box about 1.5 com by 1 cm).

First let me tell you the story of the holograms on CDs. Someone made the ruling that all original CDs and DVDs distributed in Malaysia must have a hologram sticker from a certain company some time ago. You think the pirates would be crying because this ruling would made their life difficult?   No No..  From what i was told, holograms on CDs made the pirates even happier. The pirates bought some of these holograms through backdoor ( in Malaysia, anything also ‘boleh’), and they stick the hologram on the pirated CDs and DVDs and sell them as originals at slightly less than original price. They earn more profits that way, since each piece of hologram costs about 15 cents, but after sticking the holograms on the cover, they can sell a pirated DVD,  which normally sells about RM10 a piece , at twice or three times the price. So the original manufacturers do not gain anything in bashing the pirating of the pirates. The pirates gain more in fact. The ones that gain the most of course is the company which got the sole contract to manufacture the holograms and which all original manufacturers and distributors have to buy from. Needless to say, the company is owned by … …………….

Some one must have thought of medication then. Soon,  the Ministry of Health decided to follow suit. All medicine boxes must contain hologram to prove that they are real.

To combat counterfeit, what they should have done is to have better and cleaner enforcement officers, instead of resorting to this ‘hologram’ method. But never mind, someone up there said all medicine boxes must have holograms produced by a certain company only. So, all drugs manufacturers and drug distributors have to buy holograms, and then employ staff just to stick these holograms onto the boxes. The cost of each hologram is about 15 cents; add in the costs of getting extra workers to stick the hologram, each box of medicine would cost about 30 cents more, that is what the drug companies told me. Whether these holograms have helped combat counterfeit medicine, I leave it to you clever people out there to decide.

But the drug companies are not here to do charity. They want profits. So, they pass the cost to the consumers. Each box costs them 30 cents more, but using this as an excuse, most companies increased the price by one or 2 dollars or even 5 when the ruling was first enforced a few years ago…. Just like the coffee shop, when sugar goes up 10 cents per kilo, each cup of coffee also goes up by 10cents. Same logic applies here. I suspect, counterfeit pirates must be selling their boxes of medicine with original holograms , too, to make them look real, but this I have no proof. You may say that one or two dollars increase is OK for working people like you and me, but we are not the ones so dependent on medicine.

Who are the one taking medicines regularly? The old people of course. The old and retired people. They have no income, but instead they are the one who suffered the last round when holograms rule was first enforced. Imagine, if the poor man is on five types of medicine, he has to foot at least 10 bucks more… I tell you, there are some taking 10 types of medications, and the holgram exercise made them 20 to 30 bucks poorer each time they go to refill their medicine. By the way, I was told that the hologram market in Malaysia for medication boxes is as big as tens of millions (50 millions, some put it) a year. All these go to the company with the rights to sell the hologram..And this company is owned by…….You guess right, clever people…

SO that is the end of the story about holograms.  Now, another ruling by the same Ministry Of Health is going to see medicine price going up again, in these days of inflation. The latest ruling is by October this year, no more loose packing or bottle packing of medicine are allowed to be manufactured or distributed. What will be the impact?  …..wait for Part 2.

Part 2 is here.