Unravelling Indonesia’s genomics opportunity to upgrade the nation’s healthcare infrastructure, a whitepaper has been launched by East Ventures in collaboration with Indonesian Ministry of Health and a global consulting firm Redseer. 

Indonesian healthcare infrastructure lags behind peers and WHO standards and leaves room for improvement, which combined with systemic illnesses and a population that is set to start ageing by 2030 – Indonesia needs to start preparing now.

"The state of healthcare in Indonesia today still lags behind its peers in terms of healthcare expenditure and life expectancy. This is where the field of genomics and precision medicine comes into play, offering a transformative approach to diagnosing and treating patients that takes into account the unique genetic makeup of each individual. This white paper represents a major step forward in our quest to revolutionize the healthcare industry in Indonesia and beyond", said Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia.

As the next steps, the government needs to assemble four key pillars- Policy, Infrastructure, Funding, and Human Capital. Indonesia has established bio banks and data centres along with other critical sequencing infrastructure such as genome sequencing machines, equipment and laboratories. But there is very limited participation of government, with a few private sector players operating in this space.

According to Willson Cuaca, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at East Ventures, "We believe this technology will be instrumental in improving Indonesia’s diagnosis, treatment, and medication of significant diseases. East Ventures will double down on our investment in this sector, as we believe that genomics is leading us to a previously unimaginable frontier – an adaptive and proactive healthcare system.”

East Ventures has also announced its support in the incubation programme for startups and innovators in the healthcare space with Digital Transformation Office at the Ministry of Health, named “Health Innovation Sprint Accelerator 2023 in collaboration with East Ventures”. Ten winners of this programme will receive grant funding of IDR 250 million to jumpstart their idea and other exclusive benefits.