Malaysia’s public healthcare system has six months of pharmaceutical products buffer stock, says Pharmaniaga

KUALA LUMPUR (May 19): Pharmaniaga Bhd (KL:PHARMA) said on Tuesday Malaysia’s public healthcare system currently has sufficient supply of pharmaceutical products, backed by about six months of buffer stock collectively held across Pharmaniaga, suppliers and hospitals.

“As far as sufficient supply is concerned, we have sufficient supply of pharmaceutical products,” its managing director Datuk Zulkifli Jafar told a press conference after the company’s extraordinary general meeting.

“Under the concession agreement, we are obligated to maintain a two-month stock buffer for the KKM [the Ministry of Health], our supplier will maintain two months [of stock buffer] and the hospital will maintain two months [of supply].

Zulkifli said Pharmaniaga had proactively engaged in advance procurement following lessons learnt during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly amid the ongoing Middle East conflict.

“What we did was actually build up our buffer stock. We have started issuing forward purchase orders earlier until the end of the year. So that’s what we have done,” he added.

Zulkifli said the company has been closely monitoring supply situations together with the Health Ministry and setting up an internal special task force to manage pricing and pharmaceutical products supply availability from vendors.

He cautioned that higher product and raw material costs may only start becoming more visible by the third and fourth quarters of this year, as suppliers gradually exhaust inventory accumulated earlier.

Meanwhile, Pharmaniaga expects double-digit revenue growth momentum to continue this year, supported by expanding products under the Approved Products Purchase List (APPL) from the government.

Pharmaniaga expects concession business from the government to continue growing to RM2.1 billion this year, up from RM2 billion in 2025.

The company said the APPL is expected to eventually expand to about 1,200 products by next year, from over 800 currently, with more than 100 additional products already in the pipeline.

“Having more APPL means that I have more products, so I have more SKUs. That is where my revenue is, by having more handling fee,” he explained.

Pharmaniaga posted a net profit of RM31.47 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026 (1QFY2026), compared with RM29.58 million a year earlier, while revenue rose 11.3% to RM1.18 billion, from RM1.06 billion a year ago, on higher volume orders from government hospitals.