President Director of Kimia Farma David Utama stated that his company will produce 28 pharmaceutical raw materials to reduce imported raw materials. Of the 28 raw materials, 10 are priorities set by the Ministry of Health.
"Today, we have 11 that are official, and at the beginning of next month (June), we will have 28 because we have published all of them. By 2024, these 28 pharmaceutical raw materials will help reduce imports of pharmaceutical raw materials by 17 percent," he noted here on Wednesday.
According to Utama, the biggest producers of pharmaceutical raw materials currently are India and China. In that case, the efforts made by Kimia Farma to produce pharmaceutical raw materials independently are expected to guarantee national medicine security in the future.
Utama also emphasized that the strategy adopted by Kimia Farma is not aimed at price competition but rather purely to maintain medicine availability in Indonesia.
"Thus, Indonesia produces pharmaceutical raw materials not for the purpose of beating China but for the purpose of ensuring national medicine security. Therefore, do not compare our pharmaceutical raw materials to those of China and India, which supply the world's needs," he remarked.
As of the first quarter of 2023, Kimia Farma has already had modern pharmaceutical retail with five types of outlets: Kimia Farma Primary, Kimia Farma Pharmacy+, Kimia Farma Pharmacy, Kimia Farma Health & Beauty, and Kimia Farma Express.
According to the president director, the diversification of the types of outlets has encouraged Kimia Farma to achieve positive performance in the first quarter of 2023, as the company recorded sales of Rp2.30 trillion (around US$153.81 million).
The achievement showed a growth of 2.27 percent compared to the same period last year, when it stood at Rp2.26 trillion (around US$151.14 million).
Kimia Farma also succeeded in reducing the company's cost of goods sold, resulting in a decrease year over year (YoY) in the first quarter of 2023 to Rp1.44 trillion (around US$96.29 million).
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Translator: Bayu Saputra, Raka Adji
Editor: Anton Santoso
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