GENERIC DRUG USE IN PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES STILL LOW : MINISTER

Jakarta, Jan 12 (ANTARA) - Although generic drugs are equal in quality to branded ones (innovators) and lower in price, their use in public health services has remained low, Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said.

In state-owned hospitals, generic drug prescriptions account for only 66 percent of the overall number prescriptions, and in private hospitals, for only 49 percent, the minister said here Tuesday.

"The availability of essential generic drugs in public health services only increased 69.7 percent whereas the target was 95 percent," she said at a seminar on revitalization of the use of generic drugs.

Therefore, the government would take several strategic steps to promote the use of generic drugs in public health services, she said.

One of the steps would be issuance of a health minister's decision requiring doctors in state hospitals to prefer prescribing generic drugs for patients.

"Eventually, the obligation will also be applicable in private hospitals, but first we must fix the condition in state hospitals," she said.

The minister said the government would also promote the rational use of drugs, which meant preference for generic drugs, through educative approaches to offset the promotion of non-generic medicine through advertisements.

Then, the government would try to ensure the continuity of generic drug supplies by increasing the competitiveness of the national pharmaceutical industry by providing reasonable economic incentives for pharmaceutical companies that produce generic drugs.

"The incentives will be given through the National Social Security scheme in the long-term," she said.

Minister Sedyaningsih explained that the national health insurance system involving doctors, hospitals and patients will bridge the provision of medical services as needed to control costs and quality.

Separately, the chairman of the Indonesian Pharmacology Experts Association (IKAFI), Prof. Iwan Dwi Prahasto, said the national health insurance system would make it easier to control drug prescribing.

"So far patients can only accept the drugs prescribed by doctors and in this way physicians determine the use of generic drugs. If you use the insurance model, drugs prescribing is regulated, doctors are bound by the rules, then automatically generic drugs use will increase," he said.

Besides, the government also needed to provide incentives for doctors to encourage them to prescribe generic drugs.

"But surely the government must ensure that all generic drugs on the market are of good quality, and drug production is based on Making Good medicine guidance or CPOB," he said.

He said currently some generic drug producers in the country can not apply the CPOB due to the high cost implications of applying the system.

"If forced into action, more than 70 percent of the pharmaceutical industry could collapse. In Singapore, half of the pharmaceutical industries were forced out of business because of the obligation to apply CPOB. But that does not mean we do not have to move, we also have to move, but perhaps gradually," he said.