Beacon committed to stand beside patients with affordable oncology products

Beacon Pharmaceutical Limited, a pioneer oncology drug maker in Bangladesh, is making a tremendous progress to fight against cancer in manifold activities including invention of affordable oncology products for patients.

Alongside manufacturing oncology medicines, the Bangladeshi pharma player also observes the World Cancer Day on February 4 every year with due manner to make people aware of preventing cancer and outlines action plan to keep them free from the risk of such disease.

This year, the company has shortened its outdoor anticancer campaign in complying with the health guidelines imposed by the government to halt the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus in the country.

Despite this as an oncology drug maker, the company comes up with some activities through social communicating media and publishes different types of placards, booklets and others to make people aware of the disease.

The number of cancer cases is increasing globally day by day and the prices of oncology drugs are also on the same track.

Once upon a time, financially affluent guardians somehow could manage medicine for their cancer patients while the poor family members of such patients waited when the patient breath his or her last, finding no alternative.

Realising such reality, Beacon Pharmaceutical Limited moved forward in 2002 to manufacture oncology products and at present a total of 110 types of anticancer medicines has been added to its drug chart.

“People laughed at me when I took an initiative in 2002 to manufacture oncology products. Finally, I have been able to turn my dream into reality in 2009,” Md Ebadul Karim, managing director of Beacon Pharmaceuticals Limited, shared his experience on this occasion.

“Currently Beacon manufactures 110 kinds of anticancer drug and exports those to around 134 different countries and this was a dream I had dreamt,” he said.

Now, the cancer treatment and medicine are not beyond the means of the low income guardians of the cancer patients in the country as Beacon has achieved progress in manufacturing oncology drugs.

Beacon is not only an oncology drug manufacturer but also it is a financial aids provider of Tk 3 crore to the poor patients per annum, he said.

Karim said neighboring countries like Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka provide financial support to the cancer patients from their government funds and Bangladesh can do so for the interest of poor patients.

According to Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal, with the increasing rate of people being affected by cancer in Bangladesh, the disease has become a national concern.

Anticancer drugs play a significant and crucial role in cancer treatment. Inadequate access to essential anticancer medicines may create a serious problem to the public health in Bangladesh.

According to National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), there are 13 to 15 lakh cancer patients in Bangladesh, with about two lakh patients diagnosed afresh with cancer each year.