PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY OPTIMISTIC THAT GROWTH TARGET CAN BE ACHIEVED THIS YEAR

Multinational pharmaceutical industry players are not that implementation of National Health Insurance (JKN) is able to lift growth which is expected to grow 12% this year. Parulian Simanjuntak, Executive Director of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group (IPMG), in Jakarta, on Tuesday (September 1), stated that in the first quarter of this year the growth of the pharmaceutical industry is only around 0% or about USD 1.25 billion.

According to Parulian, JKN could increase drug consumption and have impact on the increase in production volume by 60%. But on the other hand, the system makes the pharmaceutical companies have to reduce price about 50%. In addition, there is a domino effect which emerges whit the deficit experience by the Healthcare Social Security Agency (BPJS) of up o IDR 3 trillion.

Parulin expects the Government to include industry players in policy making. He said that the private sector had a 50% role in this industry and a 2.2% contribution to the GDP. If the JKN system is monopolizing, the role of the private sector will be lost. it considered to be difficult for the  government in the long term.

Parulian also highlighted the weakness of pharmaceutical research and technology, which to some extent has impact on slowing growth of the national pharmaceutical industry. According to him, the weak national pharmaceutical research and technology should be compensated by following a global clinical test.

To the end, the business considered than the government should make supportive regulations. He admitted that Indonesia is still lagging behind compared to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand in global clinical trial because there are some regulations that inhibit.

One of the regulations which is considered a barrier is the regulation issued by the Ministry of Health regarding material transfer agreement that prohibits blood samples taken in Indonesia from being sent abroad. Whereas one of the comparison requirements in the research is that the samples must be examined in the same laboratory.

According to Parulian, this thing could hamper industry player in the country in developing the latest pharmaceutical products, particularly products based on biotechnology that will be increasingly sought after in the future. He explained that to conduction research independently in the country, industry players are still having difficulties. He admitted that research and technology is not an easy task. and it review the regulation that inhibit, ̋ he said.

By looking at the weakness of such research, the Indonesia Institute of Sciences (LIPI) proposes to the ministry of Research, Technology and higher Education to form a higher learning institution which focuses on research. Head of LIPI, Iskandar Zulkarnaen, considered that the ratio of research in Indonesia is very small, so it takes a higher learning institution the produces new research in Indonesia.

Latter said Iskandar, professor at research universities have adoption work system which is not the some other universities, which are still burdened by teaching hour and only 1/3 of the time for research. According to Iskandar, to prove the advancement and welfare to a nation, there are three indicators, namely research development (R & D) budget in science and technology, number of research, as well number of research institutions that exist in country.

Currently he said R & D budget in science and technology in Indonesia is still low, only 0.09% of Indonesia’s GDP the ratio of researchers and resident in Indonesia is 90 research per I million people it countries. In addition, the number of research institutions in Indonesia is small. In fact, there are many problem that need resolved together. (E)

Business New - September 4, 2015