Hera Diani, Jakarta – The tug-of-war between the government and the powerful pharmaceutical industry over drug price rationalization and labeling is raging on, with only a small percentage of drug producers completely complying with regulations, a survey has found.
The health minister issued several decrees earlier this year obliging producers to lower drug prices as well as put price labels and generic labels on medicine. The rules were aimed at regulating prescription drugs, which are said to be the most costly in the region, in order to prevent price gouging and make health care more affordable. Last month, the minister issued a decree to further lower prices. It took effect Sunday.
A survey by the Indonesian Health Consumer Empowerment Foundation during June and September this year, however, showed that the majority of pharmaceutical companies are not yet using generic labeling. When they did, the font size was not 80 percent of the brand-name font size, as required.
Most companies, the survey said, had yet to label each product with the highest retail price set by the minister even though that rule took effect Aug. 7. They had also failed to lower prices.
"There are many products whose prices are five times to 27 times higher than the price set by minister. Whereas the minister and pharmaceutical industry agreed that the price should not exceed three times the required price," said the foundation's Marius Widjajarta in a seminar Thursday. The head of the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, Husniah Rubiana Th-Akib, slammed the industry for being reluctant to follow the regulations and frequently requesting delays.
Drug prices here are higher than in neighboring countries, she said. The antibiotic Ceftriaxone, for instance, costs US$25.48 per gram, while in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, it costs from $11.21 to $14.62 per gram.
"The price of drugs also differs from one place to another. We don't mean to kill the industry; in fact we increased 30 types of drugs because we thought their prices were too low," said Husniah, who was a member of the Health Ministry's drug price evaluation team. "We're also asking people to monitor the drug prices."
Meanwhile, Parulian Simanjuntak, the executive director of the International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group, said his members had followed the regulation requiring price labeling. "It officially took effect on Aug. 7, but the health minister agreed to give us until the end of the year to fully implement the decree," he said Thursday. He conceded that the organization was not complying on the size of the generic labeling.
Meanwhile, Anthony Sunarjo of the Indonesian Pharmaceutical Association told The Jakarta Post earlier that the group had set retail prices higher than those mandated by the ministry. "We formulated the prices ourselves because the health minister never discussed the prices with us," he said.
Parulian said that instead of focusing on regulating labels and prices, the government should work harder to increase patients' access to drugs. "We should focus on health service financing," he said. "We're focusing too much on short term programs."