Drug firms want patent law delayed

JAKARTA (JP): The government's plan to enforce the revised patent law by January has unnerved the local pharmaceutical industry, which is still almost entirely dependent on imported raw materials.

The Association of Indonesian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers urged the government Saturday to delay the law's enforcement, saying that its members are not ready to face the restrictions.

The government is planning to enforce the revision of the 1989 Patent Law, which is intended to strengthen the protection of patent rights, by January 1997.

Association chairman Anthony Sunarjo said that with a deferment, the association will have more time to adjust before the legislation goes into effect.

The association, he said, does not oppose the revised law and will accept it. However, it needs several years to prepare its members so that they can meet requirements and comply with restrictions set by the law.

"The Indonesian pharmaceutical industry needs more time to strengthen itself before it can face up to foreign competition," Anthony said.

The association's deputy chairperson, Gunawan Pranoto, said separately that if the government does enforce the amended law next year, many manufacturers will suffer heavy losses because they will be unable to produce medicines patented by foreign producers.

"Without a deferment, many producers will be forced to shut down and many workers will lose their jobs," Gunawan said.

Anthony explained that the Indonesian pharmaceutical industry cannot produce some basic medicinal ingredients. "About 98 percent of the raw materials needed to produce medicines are imported," he said.

With the support of the Ministry of Health, several large- scale pharmaceutical manufacturers formed a consortium earlier this year to produce medicinal ingredients, such as paracetamol. The plan is to reduce the high dependency on imported ingredients.

"We have to reduce our dependency little by little," Anthony said.

He acknowledged, however, that high research expenses prevented some pharmaceutical manufacturers from conducting their own research.

The research activities for one ingredient could cost a company between Rp 130 million (US$55,000) and Rp 150 million, and to produce a product could cost $350 million, he said.

He also said the high research and production costs of medicine are incomparable to the $5 per capita medicine consumption in the country.

The annual per capita consumption of medicine in Indonesia is the lowest in the region, he said. "The low level of per capita medicine consumption in Indonesia has to do with our low per capita income," Anthony said.

Per capita medicine consumption in other ASEAN member countries such as the Philippines is $14, in Malaysia it is $12, Singapore $42 and Thailand $13.

Anthony said there are a few imported medicines on the Indonesian market, but most medicine is locally produced.

"We import medicines which are difficult to produce locally due to the lack of technology or newly invented ones," Anthony said.

Indonesia exports medicines made with imported ingredients. The export market is worth about $40 million a year.

According to Ministry of Health data, there are approximately 250 medicine factories, 1,300 distributors, 4,000 pharmacies and hundreds of thousands of medicine shops in Indonesia. It is estimated there are 20,000 types of medicine on the market, most of which are made locally. (ste)