Plan for cheap drugs faces strong criticism

Plan for cheap drugs faces strong criticism

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government's plan to launch branded medicines at cheaper
prices in March does not constitute a solution to the
skyrocketing prices of drugs, critics say.

Doctors, pharmacists, a legislator and pharmaceutical business
representatives, said, during a discussion held by the Indonesian
Doctors' Association (IDI) in Jakarta on Wednesday, that the Food
and Drug Control Agency (BPOM) plan announced last month was
burdened with personal interests.

Indonesian Pharmaceuticals Watch chairman Amir Hamzah Pane
told the discussion that the government had trespassed on the
domain of other professions as the BPOM no longer had the
authority to set drug prices.

"The agency has no control over drugs prices whatsoever as its
authority is only to suggest that the government remove the high
import tariffs for drugs components in a bid to reduce production
costs," he remarked.

Pane also expressed fears that the new policy would hurt the
production of generic drugs, which are sold at prices between the
cheaper plain generic medicines and the branded products.

BPOM's head Sampurno said earlier that the government was
prepared to produce 20 medicines, ranging from antibiotics to
analgesics under a project run by state-owned pharmaceutical
company Indofarma.

Sampurno said that more efficient production methods would be
able to cut prices of the drugs by 50 percent to 60 percent in
comparison with similar patented drugs or other brands.

He said the cheap medicine production project, which is run
without the government's subsidy, was aimed at keeping drugs
prices in check and at deterring other producers from blaming
expensive drug prices on the cost of imported drugs components.

A similar project would also be offered to other
pharmaceutical companies, both state-owned and privately-owned,
Sampurno said.

IDI executive Cholid Badri, however, asked "whether he
(Sampurno) speaks as an official or as one of the commissioners
of Indofarma" since there had yet to be any clarification on how
such a policy was made.

Cholid's colleague, Mulyono, expressed fears that the policy
was made to help Indofarma promote its new products.

House of Representatives' member Ahmad Sanusi Tambunan from
Commission VII which supervises, among other issues, health,
reminded the doctors not to allow themselves be made scapegoats
for the government's failure to make drugs more affordable.

Indonesian Pharmaceutical Companies Association chairman
Anthony Ch. Sunarjo said that "as long as the people have to pay
their health care alone, without a credible insurance scheme or
without the elimination of value added tax to the drugs, any
price is expensive".