Nirmala Bhoo Pathy

Professor Nirmala Bhoo-Pathy is a public health physician, professor of clinical epidemiology and cancer systems scientist at Universiti Malaya. Her work asks a fundamental question: who benefits from progress in cancer care, and what must health systems do to ensure that others are not left behind? She combines epidemiology, policy and implementation to advance equitable, affordable and patient-centred cancer care, particularly across Asia and other low- and middle-income settings.

She is a regional lead of the multicountry ASEAN Costs in Oncology (ACTION) study, which followed nearly 10,000 patients across eight Southeast Asian countries to quantify the financial, quality-of-life and survival consequences of cancer. ACTION helped establish the evidence showing that a cancer diagnosis in low- and middle-income countries can lead not only to premature death, but also to financial catastrophe, psychological distress and impaired quality of life for patients and families.

Professor Bhoo-Pathy founded and leads Well with Cancer in Malaysia (WECAN), a solution-oriented research group at the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. WECAN moves beyond documenting gaps to developing and evaluating practical responses across cancer care, cancer control and policy. Its work spans financial protection, access to care, survivorship, patient and financial navigation, return to work, and the cancer workforce, with the broader aim of improving life during and after cancer.

She serves as Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Women, Power and Cancer and the Lancet Commission on Cancer and Health Systems, and as Economic Section Lead on the Lancet Oncology Commission on the Human Crisis in Cancer. She is President of the Asian Pacific Organization for Cancer Prevention, a Board Member of the Institute of Cancer Policy at King’s College London, and a Steering Committee member of the Global Alliance for Cancer Patient Navigation.

Beyond academia, Professor Bhoo-Pathy writes and speaks for public audiences about how health systems, financing, workplaces and social conditions shape people’s experiences of cancer. Through this work, she seeks to strengthen the visibility of public health medicine as a medical speciality with reach across science, policy and global health. In 2024, she was named one of Tatler Asia’s Most Influential, recognising the wider societal reach of her work.