Raising the Nation's Competitiveness with Techomedicine

An international seminar or conference on technomedicine has just been held at the UGM Faculty of Medicine on 21-22 October 2014 as part of the UGM 65th Anniversary. The topics discussed at the conference were pull and push factors to achieve national independence through technomedicine. The power of research based on new inventions to be patented is one of the push factors to achieve national independence. With so many educational, research and community service activities by universities known as the Tridharma of Higher Education, up to now, it turns out that the achievement of patent products in all fields, especially in the field of medicine, is still poor. The thing that is concerning in the medical world is that more than 90% of medicines and medical technology are still imported. Therefore, collaboration from all fields is needed, starting from pharmacy, medicine, animal husbandry, industrial engineering, biology and food technology to increase research that has output in the form of patents in health and medical technology. Those are the various reasons behind the international seminar activities in commemoration of the 65th UGM Anniversary with the theme UGM serving to lead the country. The event presented speakers from Germany, USA, Singapore and Australia to share experiences on the role of universities, the market, and government as well as hospitals in patent-oriented research and development (R&D). From Indonesia, they were represented by the assistant rector for academics and rector for cooperation/alumni, as well as UGM researchers who have obtained patents. Another interesting thing is the role of social foundations with a philanthropic spirit in utilizing patented products to accelerate health development. One of them is the TAHIJA foundation which is engaged in eradicating the Aedes Aegypti mosquito by using wolbacheri bacteria which are injected into female mosquitoes. These mosquitoes will breed with local male mosquitoes so that the population of Aedes mosquitoes containing Wolbacheri bacteria increases. This is useful for killing the dengue virus in the Aedes mosquito.

In terms of government policy, there needs to be a breakthrough to increase patent-oriented research by increasing the macro-allocation of the budget or APBN for research (R&D), a career policy for doctors as researchers with adequate laboratories, not being positioned as administrative managers. Giving positions in the organizational structure for academics should not cause premature academic career death (PACD). Universities are required to increase the meoallocation budget. Industry must also increase the meoallocation and microallocation budgets for R&D. Researchers should also not only make research for additional projects and income for the foundations of houses and luxury cars so that misallocation does not occur at the micropolicy/microallocation level. This needs to be complemented by a pull factor from the market and clear regulations for the protection of intellectual property so that investment can be sustainable by creating harmony/fairness between social/public/community interests and researchers. It is undeniable that for a scientific discovery to be patented requires a lot of capital. An illustrative example is the discovery of a new drug takes 14 years, costs 12 billion dollars and has a failure rate of 95% (14-12-95). Therefore sharing is very important between the market, researchers, government and industry so that costs can be pursued together and its application to society can be more affordable economically and socially.

Experience in Germany with an average of over 4000 scientific publications per year each university can produce 50 patents. One of the secrets is that the title of professor in Germany will not be awarded if it never produces a patent for industrial purposes. Another story in Singapore, one of the leading hospitals in Singapore is able to make innovative products from every department within the hospital which can be developed into patents. Everyday experiences in the hospital are mapped and developed into innovative ideas which in turn become hospital services based on the creativity of hospital human resources. Because every year there must be an internal competition in the hospital to assess the innovation and creativity of each HR in each section or department. From their presentation it is very clear that the competitiveness of a nation is highly dependent on R&D activities which end up in patented products, especially in the field of medicine (technomedicine). When can we catch up with him? Hopefully with the new government it will be better Amen. This was the report from Dr. SAA and Dr. Erlina who were assigned by the Dean of FK UII to attend the event. send regards for success