Indonesian pharma seeing 12% annual average growth and strong competition

The Indonesian pharmaceuticals sector currently has sales of about 22,000.0 billion rupiah ($2.2 billion), an average annual growth rate in recent years of around 12%, consists of some 200 drug manufacturers with 60 accounting for about 80% of turnover, and intense competition between the other companies for a share of the remainder of the market.

In a recent interview reported in the Jakata Post, Ferry Soetikno, chief executive of Dexa Medica, one of the sector's leading companies, said that "the growth rate will likely fall to a single digit in 2006, as increasing production costs and the need to comply with global manufacturing standards will hamper sales."

Sector needs to improve