Talking Point host Steven Chia bringing medicines from Malaysia to a laboratory to be tested for drug potency.JOHOR BAHRU: For almost a decade, estate agent and content creator Ryan Khoo has made videos comparing life on both sides of the Causeway, such as videos about all things cheaper in Malaysia.
He found this out after being asked to buy medicine in Johor Bahru for a friend’s father. “Later on, I realised quite a lot of people do it. Either they buy it for themselves or for their parents,” said Khoo.viewers, too, wrote in saying they not only get cheaper medicines in Malaysia, but also can buy those that require a prescription without proffering a doctor’s note. There are risks, however, as host Steven Chia discovers.
And one Singaporean whom Chia ran into at a pharmacy was stocking up on Twynsta, which is for hypertension. Back home, a box costs more than S$100, compared to RM66 in Johor, said the customer. “When there’s so much competition, the pharmacies would … drop the price just to make sure the customers come back.”
Paracetamol is an example of a generic medicine referred to by its active ingredient, instead of the famous brand name, Panadol. It is among hundreds of drugs produced by YSP Southeast Asia Holding, one of Malaysia’s largest manufacturers of generics.“We’re local, … so certainly, much cheaper than other imported items,” said company president Lee Fang Hsin. And they are effective because of the “testing rules and regulations”, he added, which “everybody must follow”.
“Every single prescription medicine that a pharmacist dispenses will need to have an entry,” he said, showing Chia a prescription book containing the quantities supplied, the dates and patients’ details, countersigned by the pharmacist. Even without crossing the Causeway, however, Singaporeans can get medication from Malaysia through websites that promise home delivery anywhere in Singapore.
One reason that it was less potent than expected and thus “less useful”, said Wang, might have been that it was not kept cool — between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius — “to maintain the stability of the medication”.
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