Indonesia's National Drug Policy out soon

Local reports from Indonesia indicate that the country's Minister of Health, Siti Fadilah Supari, is finalizing the National Drug Policy, which will regulate all drug-related issues from financing to access. A previously-announced health insurance scheme is likely to boost demand for generic drugs, given that they represent 90% of the existing 13,740.0 billion rupiah ($1.49 billion) prescription drug market.

Most generics drugs in Indonesia are produced by the state-owned pharmaceutical companies, such as PT Kimia Farma and PT Indofarma.

Rani Sofyan, an analyst from Indonesian securities firm PT Manditi Sekuritas, told the Jakarta Post: "the pharmaceutical industry has very high potential since per capita consumption of drugs is still very low." Mr Sofyan estimates that the drugs market grew 10% last year and will see growth of about 11% this year.