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ON World Can­cer Day (Feb 4), I reflec­ted on a dif­fi­cult truth: we have made sig­ni­fic­ant advances in can­cer treat­ment over the past dec­ade but for too many fam­il­ies, a dia­gnosis still evokes fear – not only of the dis­ease itself but of whether care is fin­an­cially within reach and what that cost means for life bey­ond treat­ment.

Nearly half of the world’s can­cer cases occur in Asia, yet access to com­pre­hens­ive can­cer care remains uneven. 

While high-income coun­tries are able to provide com­pre­hens­ive treat­ment in more than 90pc of cases, access drops to below 15pc in many other parts of the world, a sub­stan­tial pro­por­tion of which is in Asia.

Health sys­tems with estab­lished onco­logy infra­struc­ture and stronger reim­burse­ment path­ways tend to enable more con­sist­ent use of effect­ive ther­apies – from essen­tial chemo­ther­apy and small molecule medi­cines to advanced bio­lo­gics (med­ic­a­tions that come from liv­ing organ­isms) and biosim­il­ars (highly sim­ilar ver­sions of approved bio­lo­gical medi­cines).

In Asia, however, dif­fer­ences in reg­u­la­tion, reim­burse­ment design and aware­ness con­tinue to shape how quickly and con­sist­ently these ther­apies reach patients, with dir­ect con­sequences on sur­vival and qual­ity of life.

In Malay­sia and Viet­nam, des­pite ongo­ing invest­ments in onco­logy ser­vices, high prices and gaps in reim­burse­ment mean many patients face sig­ni­fic­ant out-of-pocket costs for bio­lo­gic can­cer ther­apies, lim­it­ing timely and sus­tained access.

In Viet­nam in par­tic­u­lar, high out-of-pocket spend­ing has been linked to treat­ment delays and fin­an­cial hard­ship for house­holds affected by can­cer.

In more mature sys­tems such as Taiwan, strong reg­u­lat­ory and clin­ical infra­struc­ture has enabled broader avail­ab­il­ity of innov­at­ive onco­logy medi­cines. At the same time, sus­tain­ab­il­ity con­sid­er­a­tions have driven policy innov­a­tions.

Taiwan’s National Health Insur­ance Admin­is­tra­tion (NHIA) launched a pilot pro­gramme in 2024 to encour­age the use of biosim­il­ars, increas­ing their share among reim­bursed bio­lo­gics from 7.38pc in 2023 to 11.9pc that year.

The NHIA has set an ambi­tion to raise biosim­ilar util­isa­tion to 70pc, strength­en­ing drug sup­ply resi­li­ence while expand­ing patient access.

For dec­ades, more afford­able treat­ment through qual­ity gen­eric medi­cines – includ­ing estab­lished chemo­ther­apy and tar­geted oral ther­apies – have formed the back­bone of can­cer care across the globe, enabling con­tinu­ity of treat­ment within con­strained health sys­tem budgets.

Today, biosim­il­ars extend this same access prin­ciple to more advanced bio­lo­gic can­cer ther­apies. Biosim­il­ars have no mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ences in safety or effect­ive­ness but are offered at sub­stan­tially lower prices, often 30–50pc less than their ref­er­ence products (approved bio­lo­gics).

By redu­cing costs, biosim­il­ars can enable earlier ini­ti­ation of ther­apy, sup­port com­ple­tion of treat­ment and allow more patients to bene­fit from proven can­cer medi­cines.

At San­doz, we see both gen­er­ics and biosim­il­ars as more than cost-sav­ing altern­at­ives. They are ena­blers of sys­tem-wide change, free­ing up health­care resources, expand­ing treat­ment capa­city, and help­ing health sys­tems deliver earlier and more equit­able access to can­cer care.

In more mature mar­kets such as the United King­dom, sav­ings from just 10 biosim­ilar and gen­eric medi­cines were enough to fully fund ini­ti­at­ives like the UK Can­cer Drugs Fund.

Sim­ilar impacts are seen across Europe, where aligned policy, reim­burse­ment frame­works and clin­ical lead­er­ship have driven the uptake of biosim­il­ars for key onco­logy bio­lo­gics to 60–80pc within two years of launch­ing.

The World Can­cer Day Cam­paign 2025-2027, themed “United By Unique”, calls for a rethink in how can­cer care is delivered, recog­nising the needs of indi­vidual patients while unit­ing stake­hold­ers, both in the private and pub­lic sec­tors, behind scal­able, sus­tain­able solu­tions.

With a shared com­mit­ment to people-centred care and increased adop­tion of qual­ity-assured biosim­il­ars to expand access to life-sav­ing med­ic­a­tions, the play­ing field across Asia can be lev­elled, giv­ing more can­cer patients a fairer chance in their fight against the dis­ease.

Boon Huey EE

President

Sandoz Asia Cluster

 

The views expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Express. If you have something to share, write to us at: Forum@dailyexpress.com.my