Jakarta. Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin denied Tuesday that taxes were what had caused drug prices to soar, and blamed the expensive medicines on the huge costs needed to promote the products.

Drugs sold in Indonesia can be five times more expensive than those in other Southeast Asian countries. 

“Many thought that [the price hikes] were because of the taxes but the taxes were only within a range of 5-11 percent. But still, there is a huge gap between drug prices sold here and overseas. The difference can reach up to 400-500 percent [more expensive]. But I doubt that taxes are the main cause here. It is actually the marketing and the drug education costs,” Budi said at the Investor Daily Roundtable in Jakarta on Tuesday.

According to Budi, the government has prepared some long-term strategies to make medicines more affordable. These strategies include improving transparency, so people know how much a medicine should cost.

“We want to make everything transparent so people know why the drugs are expensive and how much they should cost. Today, people are probably unaware that the price of paracetamol may differ from hospital to hospital. We will regulate this,” the minister said.

The Health Ministry is planning to regulate the pharmaceutical industry to prevent drugs from being sold at ridiculously high prices. The government also promised to improve the industry’s distribution process and address the high marketing costs, among others. 

The government is also working on a short-term plan to fix the pharmaceutical industry. 

“We are still discussing with Mr. President [Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo]. It is still a work in progress as requested by our president,” Budi said.