11 Critical Targets For Healthcare NKEA In 2012

Bernama KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 -- The government has outlined 11 critical targets for the Healthcare National Key Economic Area (NKEA) for 2012.

These are to expand Foreign Workers Health Insurance to foreign workers in Sabah and Sarawak, corporatisation of Clinical Research Malaysia (CRM), incentives to encourage the establishment of more bioequivalence centres, implementation of Pharmaceutical Off-Take Agreement and Amendment to Patent Act, according to the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) Annual Report 2011 by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu).

The other targets are to increase in the expansion of hospitals and ambulatory centres, expansion of the Diagnostic Services Nexus (DSN) to more public and private hospitals, completion of earthworks for the construction of University of Malaya (UM) Health Metropolis, establishment of Medical Device Authority by May 2012, enforcement of National Regulations for Medical Device by October 2012 and Conversion of Seniors Living Business Opportunities (BOs) to Entry Point Projects (EPPs).

The Healthcare NKEA intends to focus on bringing both the public and private sectors into collaboration and its main aim is to identify private sector initiatives and opportunities to develop the healthcare sector into a more organised and coherent manner.

On mandating private health insurance for all foreign workers and improve workmen's compensation coverage, Pemandu said discussions are currently underway to extend the scheme to other sectors and Sabah and Sarawak.

The EPP of creating a supportive ecosystem to grow clinical research plans to corporatise CRM this year is to allow it to improve its operational efficiency and attract more clinical trials to the country.

In the leverage patent expiry by pursuing generic opportunities, the focus in 2012 will be to review and address issues relating to pharmaceutical patent law and policy in Malaysia.

The Ministry of Health Malaysia will optimise the utilisation of local bioequivalence facilities, which included upgrading local facilities and introducing incentives to encourage local manufacturers to opt for these facilities.

On healthcare travel, the Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) together with other agencies such as the Ministry of Finance and the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) is working on the drafts of investment tax incentives to qualify local healthcare facilities who are registered under MHTC as health travel promoting facilities.

This year, the DSN will focus on building capacity and branding of the services by linking radiologists across the country, thus creating a sizeable pool of expertise to enable the parallel expansion of the services to the private healthcare providers and more public facilities.

At the same time, the DSN will also seek in-sourcing services from other countries.

Meanwhile, the UM Health Metropolis, which is expected to be fully operational by early 2016, will potentially contribute RM986 million in Gross National Income (GNI) while creating an estimated 10,400 new jobs by 2020. Construction works on the metropolis are expected to start early next year.

The 2010 Healthcare NKEA lab comprised six EPPs and two BOs, which are expected to generate a combined RM35.3 billion incremental GNI and create 181,000 new jobs by 2020.