Indonesian perspective on biomaterials and medical devices

Indonesia is an emerging country with population about 255 million in 2015 and 40% of this population is in their productive age. The country’s nominal GDP for 2015 is about 900 billion USD with 5% annual growth and general government debt stays at 26% of GDP. The government has put healthcare service as one of the strategic program in the 2015–2019 National Development Plan along with a new effective national healthcare financing scheme. Indonesia is a big market for medical products with a market value about 800 million USD in 2015 and estimated to reach 1.2 billion USD in 2019. The government has set policies and a clear roadmap for assuring the availability and distribution of medical devices by fostering local production, improving the quality of local products and tightening the surveillance to the pre- and post-market devices. The challenge lies on unifying the country’s experts to mutually collaborate under a strong leadership on the same interest toward the national independency in producing effective yet low cost medical devices.