The Star Online, Monday 3 July 2006

More R&D incentives needed

LOCAL pharmaceutical products are at a disadvantage in competing with imported products, said Hovid Bhd managing director David Ho.

“Some of our raw and packaging materials are subject to import duties or taxes, whereas the imported finished products are exempted,” he said.

Ho said he hoped the government could provide greater incentives for local pharmaceutical companies to undertake more research and development activities, which could be very costly.

He also said unless more was done to improve the education system and retain the top brains in Malaysia via incentives and appropriate encouragement from the government, it would be extremely difficult to attain a knowledge-based economy.

Finally, Ho said, to provide for a level playing field between local products and imported ones, the government should be more stringent on the latter.

For instance, he said, many food supplements/vitamins imported into Malaysia were made under food grade manufacturing standards of foreign countries, whereas similar products made locally needed to be under pharmaceutical manufacturing standards, which were more costly and required higher quality products.