The cost of medicine

The cost of medicine

From Kompas

I agree with the Consumer Institute's findings that the prices of medicines in Indonesia are substantially higher than in other countries. The reasons are as follows.

First, the price leaders in most of the products are foreign pharmaceutical companies. They take their profits twice. First, the parent company gets a share in the profits by supplying raw material, and second, the company in Indonesia makes its profit by manufacturing the finished product. The selling price is two to five times the production cost, so that the gross profit is in the range of 100 percent to 400 percent.

Second, promotion costs reach 15 percent to 20 percent. I feel the following can be done to reduce the price of medicines.

* Have tighter government control on the price of medicine by determining that the selling price does not exceed double the basic production cost. This would yield a gross profit of 100 percent. This is very adequate, is it not?

* Wasteful promotion should by replaced by a more economical and effective method of promotion.

* The possibility of importing medicine, which is cheaper and more effective.

* The understanding that physicians need not hastily use new medicines (certainly more expensive) that are not necessarily more effective than the cheaper, existing pharmaceutical products.

ADNAN SAID

Jakarta