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Expensive medicines in Indonesia? It's just not true
The "expensive medicine" trope has again resurfaced in headlines across the country, when the fact of the matter is that Indonesians have many, many options when it comes to buying medicines, from branded imports to locally produced generic drugs.
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A health worker (right) gives medicine and food supplements to a
pregnant woman on May 17, 2024, at an integrated health post (Posyandu) in Ciputat, (Antara/Sulthony Hasanuddin)
A
fter 35 years of observing, researching and writing about Indonesia, I am getting circular vision because the same stories come up over and over again: Export-led growth will be the savior of the economy; adding value downstream will be the savior of the economy; prices spike after sudden import ban; trading partners angered by sudden export ban; and the like.
Some of these stories come back to haunt us because they remain true, decade after decade. Other headlines reappear because no one bothers to look closely at the facts or to recognize the progress Indonesia has made. First prize in the latter category goes to the recently exhumed storyline persuading us that medicines are overpriced in Indonesia.
This story has been around since at least the 1980s and it was broadly true until 2014. The trope has resurfaced periodically since then, most recently from the mouth of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo earlier this month.
The health minister agreed, citing an unpublished report showing that medicines were between a quarter and five times more expensive in Indonesia than in Malaysia. That would be true if, like the authors of that report, you only buy foreign-owned brands from an international pharmacy chain.
But our team at the center for pharmaceutical policy studies at Pancasila University lives and breathes Indonesian medicine pricing analysis, and our data tell a very different story.
Let's take a concrete example. The Health Ministry reports that Norvask, an antihypertensive medicine made by United States pharma giant Pfizer, costs Rp 7,650 (50 US cents) per 5 milligram pill at a Wellings pharmacy in Indonesia, 45 percent more than at the chain’s outlet in its home country, Malaysia.
In two recent studies (one by Pancasila University and the other in collaboration with Brawijaya University), we bought 19 samples of Norvask from pharmacies, hospitals, doctors and online marketplaces in several Indonesian provinces. They cost from Rp 6,500 to Rp 14,500 per pill, with the most expensive coming from a private hospital in Jakarta. So yes, all were more than the Rp 5,285 price tag in Malaysia.
