and other foreign drug companies can quit
rules requiring them to have local production facilities, Health Minister Siti
Fadilah Supari said on Monday.
introduced earlier this month are designed to encourage foreign companies to
transfer technologies to
and boost investment to create jobs, she said.
want to get licences to sell their products they have to invest here also, not
just take advantage of the Indonesian market”, Ms Supari told Dow Jones
Newswires.
just operate like a retailer here, with an office size that’s three metres by
three and make billions of rupiah. That is not fair”.
which has drawn protests from the US Chamber of Commerce, will affect 13
international pharmaceutical companies that currently sell their drugs in
do not have production facilities here.
affected companies include Wyeth, Eli Lilly and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp.
of the
AstraZeneca of Britain and Astellas Pharma of
new rules, foreign companies have a two-year grace period in which to set up
production facilities.
said she believes
big drugs market – worth around two billion dollars (S$3.04 billion) a year –
would persuade the companies that building production facilities is worthwhile.
fail to do so would be banned from selling their products or distributing them
through companies that do have plants in
want to go away, go ahead,’ she said. She added that
and
had already enacted such requirements.
president and chief executive of the US Chamber of Commerce, Thomas J. Donohue,
last week sent a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, urging the
president to ‘consider revising the decree.’
29 international pharmaceutical companies marketing their products in
total market share of 25 per cent.
minister said the new rules will give ‘fair treatment’ to pharmaceutical
companies that have already invested in drug production facilities in
