KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 — Pharmaceutical companies must offer more cost-effective solutions beyond good products to help governments manage rising health costs, said Singapore’s Health Minister Ong Ye Kung.

At the EU-Asean Health Summit 2025, Ong said pharmaceutical companies and governments must “speak the same language”, as there is currently a disconnect between the industry’s focus on high-priced, innovative products and governments’ need for cost-effective solutions that serve public health needs.

“The language pharmaceutical companies speak is always, ‘I have this good drug, this good vaccination, and you pay for it, and I’ve got innovative ways to make you pay for it,’” Ong said during a panel discussion with Malaysia’s Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad at the summit, organised by the EU-Asean Business Council last Tuesday. 

“That’s from your point of view, and no doubt it’s a good product. But from the health minister or health ministry’s perspective, if we receive that product, we have to administer it to the entire population. Is that cost-effective?

“I’ll give you an example. Someone comes to us with a good vaccination. If we administer it to the whole Singapore population, we might avoid a small proportion of serious diseases which could lead to, say, hospitalisation. 

“But to prevent that small percentage of hospitalisation, we would need to purchase this vaccine and distribute it to the entire population, which would cost multiple times more,” Ong said. “So from a population health standpoint, actually, maybe we will take our chances.”

Ong called for a shift in how pharmaceutical companies engage with governments. “The only way for us to start speaking the same language is that pharmaceutical companies first offer a better price. Second, we need to define the risk pool. It cannot be for the entire population. 

“Can we sum it up by age, by current implications, by measurements of their medical conditions? Can we sum up the risk pool where the yield is higher? If you administer this vaccination for this group, you can actually prevent a very high percentage of people from going to the hospital. That’s when it will start to make sense. Not only is it cost-effective, but it is my belief, if we design it well, it is cost-saving,” Ong said.

“We need to...