Price stamps to keep medicines affordable to public: House
Dewi Santoso, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
House of Representatives legislators have demanded price labeling on medicines, saying it will keep the drug prices affordable to the general public.
Deputy Chairman of the House of Representative's Commission VII on people's welfare Surya Chandra said the price tag, which mentions the highest retail price, should be stamped on the strip or bottle of a drug brand.
"We hope the price tag will result in competition among producers in offering discounts, which will assure consumers of affordable prices," Surya said on Monday.
He said manufacturers had so far been lacking transparency in their pricing policies, leaving patients with no alternatives to the drugs prescribed by doctors.
"Price labeling will enable patients choices of medicines that fit their income and stop collusion between doctors and the pharmacy industry," Surya said.
For compound medicines, however, the price tag may be ineffective, he said.
"Therefore it's the obligation of doctors to inform patients of the composition of each prescribed compound medicine," he said.
Surya said drug prices in the country could reach some 300 percent to 500 percent of the cost of the raw materials.
"I know the government set a price of a medicine at Rp 2,500 (29 U.S. cents), but it turned out the manufacturer could provide a discount up to 90 percent, which means the production cost of it is very low," he said.
Surya said that generally, the private pharmacy industry in the country would set the price of a copied drug slightly below the price of the original brand.
"The fact is, in many countries, prices of copy drugs are only one third or one fourth of those of the originals," he said.
He said prices of imported medicines distributed in Indonesia were directly set by principal companies with respect to the importing country's currency as a denominator.
"Thus, the price comparison conducted by the Food and Drugs Supervisory Agency (BPOM) is ineffective," he said.