Jakarta, June 03, 2024, The Europe Today: The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has emphasized Indonesia’s vast potential for producing herbal medicines, given its rich biodiversity resources. This was highlighted by BRIN’s Head, Laksana Tri Handoko, during a statement made on Monday in Jakarta.
“In general, we should be able to replace all medicinal raw materials,” Handoko stated, underscoring Indonesia’s significant biodiversity, which includes approximately 30,000 identified species. Despite this wealth of natural resources, the country currently has only 76 standardized herbal medicines.
Handoko believes that optimizing this biodiversity could enable Indonesia to achieve sovereignty in medicine and health. He noted that such sovereignty would prevent future medicine shortages like those experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That (medicinal raw materials offer) sovereignty and resilience in this modern era, which is actually much more important than just war,” Handoko remarked.
However, Handoko acknowledged that processing natural raw materials into medicines requires a lengthy process involving extensive research and technological development. He cited the example of several plants known to be raw materials for paracetamol, noting that creating machines to process these materials consistently remains a challenge.
To address these challenges, Handoko stated that BRIN is actively seeking collaborations within the health industry to enable Indonesia to independently produce medicines and health devices using its biodiversity resources. He noted that Indonesia currently lacks a machine industry capable of this processing, necessitating partnerships with the manufacturing industry.
“The machine industry does not exist in Indonesia. That is why we must have partners with the manufacturing industry,” Handoko remarked.
