Govt to reduce medicine prices to affordable levels

JAKARTA (JP): The government moved yesterday to alleviate public outcry over the soaring prices of generic drugs, promising to gradually reduce them to an affordable rate.

"Insya Allah (God willing), we will slash generic drug prices starting next week," Minister of Health Sujudi told reporters during a break in a hearing with the House of Representatives' Commission VI for health and social services.

Sujudi said the free fall of rupiah against the U.S. dollar had caused medicine prices to soar, but reiterated the government's plan to subsidize hospitals and drugstores' purchases of generic drugs. The government will also help state- owned pharmaceutical companies to buy ingredients at lower rates.

The move is expected to help reduce the prices of generic drugs, which have soared up to 150 percent over the past two months.

Sujudi failed to mention by how much the reduction would be made, but the newly installed director general for medicine and food supervision, H. Sampurno, said his office was still calculating new prices that will meet the public's purchasing capability.

"We are still calculating the new prices using the real value of the rupiah against the dollar to find the exact rate that will be affordable for the public," he said yesterday.

He indicated the new prices would likely be a return to the rate that was set by the government in January, before their significant increase over the past few weeks.

The government increased generic drug prices by 50 percent last month. Following the steady depreciation of rupiah against the dollar, the government again raised the price by 100 percent earlier this month.

The price hikes have upset many people, who found suddenly they could not afford to buy generic drugs, which used to be sold cheaper than patent drugs. The latter's price have reportedly soared by up to 300 percent.

It has been reported that some hospitals and drugstores in Jakarta and its surrounding areas have run out of generic drugs, causing many people to panic.

Sujudi said he has ordered the 47 state-owned pharmaceutical companies to distribute any available stock of generic drugs.

"If we only spend money for subsidizing while the drugs are not available in the market, the prices will remain very high," said Sujudi.

He said supply is sufficient for the next four months.

Sujudi also said the government has imported drug ingredients and some emergency medical equipment, including for blood transfusions, anesthetics and kidney dialysis, with a Letter of Credit worth US$58 million issued recently.

The purchases are expected to arrive next month and be adequate for the next three months.

He said that local drug manufacturers would continue to produce generic drugs until the end of March using the imported ingredients. (09)