In order to increase the use of domestically produced drug raw materials, the government provides facilitation of Change Source of drug raw materials from imported drug raw materials to domestic drug raw materials.

Kick Off Change Source for the Use of Domestic Drug Raw Materials was held at PT Kimia Farma Sungwun Pharmacopia, Cikarang, Bekasi on Thursday (2/6). Inaugurated by the Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin, accompanied by the Director General of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices (Dirjen Farmalkes) Rizka Andalucia, President Director of Holding BUMN Farmasi Honesti Basyir, and attended by business actors in the pharmaceutical sector.

This inauguration is also one of the steps to start the transformation of health services. Budi explained that so far, many drugs and raw materials are still imported. This has a big impact when a pandemic hits Indonesia, which limits the supply of drug raw materials for the community. “That is what makes the Ministry of Health want, at least 50 percent of our medicines from upstream to downstream to be produced domestically,” said the Minister of Health.

According to him, this transformation is not about economics or nationalism, but health resilience to protect 270 million Indonesians, so that they can get quality access. “Especially for now, we have inaugurated a number of raw material factories for Povidone Iodine, which we usually use for red medicine when we get injured,” he explained.

Previously, the raw materials for the drug were 100 percent imported, but it turns out that the source of raw materials for Povidone Iodine itself is mined from Kimia Farma in East Java.

In her report, Director General of Pharmaceuticals Rizka Andalucia revealed that the Ministry of Health is transforming the health system, one of the pillars of which is the transformation of the health resilience system with an agenda to increase the resilience of the pharmaceutical sector through local production of biopharmaceutical products, vaccines, chemical and natural Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API).

Of the ten largest molecules, Rizka said, until 2021 there are several medicinal raw materials that can be produced domestically, including Paracetamol produced by PT Riasima, Klopidogrel and Atorvastatin produced by PT Kimia Farma Sungwun Pharmacopeia, and Omeprazole produced by PT Ferron Pharmaceutical.

On the same occasion, Honesti Basyir, President Director of Holding SOE Pharmaceuticals, said that this change in resources is part of a new breakthrough to reduce the dependence on imported raw materials which is still very high. Currently, around 90% of drug raw materials are still sourced from imports and based on product data published in the e-catalog, around 34.7% are imported products, which are dominated by innovative products (patent products and biological products, including blood products).

“If at present we still import around 90%, in our group (Holding BUMN Farmasi) we can reduce up to 20% dependence on medicinal raw materials, this is our target in the road map that we have made until 2026, indeed this is a bit difficult to become 0% because there are upstream industries, basic chemicals that we also have to improve to be able to shine.

To achieve this target, Honesti Baasyir expects government support in terms of simpler and easier regulations. “We believe that with government support such as the Ministry of Health, we can unite our determination to support each other by adjusting regulations, so that we can produce faster and compete with imports. Because with limited economies of scale, of course we cannot fully compete with imports,” he hoped.