Minister of Health Regulation No. 17/2017 on the Action Plan for the Development of the Pharmaceutical and Health Care Industry is a guideline in the development of domestic pharmaceutical raw materials to encourage the independence of domestic medicinal raw materials. According to the Permenkes, there are four pillars of drug raw material development in Indonesia, namely chemical, vaccine, biotechnology and natural.

Nowadays, medicine is starting to turn to the results of biologic drug development research or biotechnology. Biotechnology is a modern technique for converting raw materials through biological transformation into products that are beneficial to humans. Biotechnology utilizes scientific and engineering principles on organisms, systems or biological processes to produce and or increase the potential of organisms as well as produce products and services for the benefit of human life.

Jakarta, June 2, 2022. The Directorate General of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices through the Directorate of Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Resilience organized the “Focus Group Discussion Evaluation of Biotechnology Production Acceleration Achievements” at AONE Hotel, Central Jakarta.

This activity was held in a hybrid manner and was attended by 57 participants consisting of representatives of the pharmaceutical industry who have and will develop biological products, participants from the Ministry of Health, BRIN, BPOM, Associations (GP Farmasi and HISFARSI), as well as pharmaceutical industries and research institutions located outside Jakarta.

In his report, the Head of the Working Team for the Development and Facilitation of Downstreaming of Raw Materials and Preparations of Phytopharmacia and Domestic Biological Products, Refiandes said that this activity aims to get input from the product user side (fasyankes) on the use of domestic biological products, get an evaluation of the implementation of biological product development from industry players and provide recommendations for follow-up plans for each stakeholder in order to accelerate the development of biological products.

Director General of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices L. Rizka Andalucia had the opportunity to give directions and officially open this activity. The Director General said that biotechnology products are one of the target focuses of the Ministry of Health. This is considering the development of treatments that are starting to switch to biotechnology products, the need in health services is quite large, plus the price of these products is also quite high.

“My hope is that the technology and quality of biotechnology products produced by Indonesia can compete so that they can be equal or even superior to foreign products,” said the Director General. Efforts to accelerate the development of biological products require cooperation from all parties including the government, academics/research institutions, industry and the community. Strengthening regulations, research, increasing the competence of human resources and close coordination and synergy are needed in this effort.