Indonesia tells drug firms: "invest or go"

Indonesia's Minister of Health, Siti Fadilah Supari, has announced new regulations requiring foreign pharmaceutical companies to have local manufacturing facilities, in a move aimed at encouraging technology transfer and more investment to create employment in a nation of 235 million people, according to several local and international media reports.

Under the new rules, multinational drugmakers have been given a two-year period of grace to comply in order to receive licenses to sell their products in the country. The media suggests that companies likely to be impacted - because they sell in Indonesia but have no production units - include US majors Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co and Wyeth, as well as European firms AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis and Servier.

Minister Supari said that these companies would not risk being locked out of the country's $2.0-billion drugs market, reports the Associated Press. She said she was not worried, because local and international drugmakers that already have factories in Indonesia can import some medicines with "special access" licenses ensuring that domestic needs are met. She also told Reuters that she is not against working with foreigners, but "the deal should be fair...I have the market, the biggest in ASEAN."