Surabaya, Universitas Airlangga – A great news came from the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universitas Airlangga. The potential of Jotang Gel as an osteoporosis drug created by Mrs. Retno Widyowati succeeded in gaining an achievement as the Champion of the Poster Category at the Indonesian Herbal Innovation Downstreaming Exchange on Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at Balai Kartini, Central Jakarta.
The followings are the results of the interview by Farma Pos with Ms. Retno last February.
How did you get to win this award?
BPOM initially announced to all universities in Indonesia about the Indonesian Herbal Innovation Downstreaming Exchange. Universitas Airlangga itself sent eight titles to be included. However, only three were accepted by BPOM while five others were rejected on the grounds that the five titles had been processed. It means that there were already industries that produced the related researches. Meanwhile, the purpose of BPOM to hold this event was to accommodate studies that had not been executed into products. Therefore, several industries came to the event.
What motivated you to do this research?
Osteoporosis drugs that are currently circulating in the market mostly has oral route. Then, I innovated to make gel. Why? My rationale was related to patient compliance. Osteoporosis patients usually come from the elderly and sometimes at that age, people are lazy to take every day routine medication.
What were the challenges and obstacles for you in conducting this research?
In a research, we must use positive control, but in Indonesia, there is no positive control. The use of positive control requires us to use preparations that already exist and are in use. For example, if we have a fever, yes, we take Paracetamol. Now what [My product red.] is this? There is no one that has a lot of oral gels yet. So, I had to look for osteoporosis medicine in the form of gel to foreign countries. I was searching in Singapore, Japan, to Canada. Actually, they have a product like that, but it should not be carelessly bought because the drug is classified as hard drug, so they must be consumed based on doctor’s prescription.
Evidently, from Kimia Farma, there is a drug in a gel preparation that contains estradiol. It is not directly overcome osteoporosis, but, this drug plays in hormone therapy and is recommended for osteoporosis therapy.
For product application to the community itself, the problem is in the dosage, right. Most industries asked me, “how can this gel have the right dose?”. When it came to research, we determined the dose by weighing ... So, for its application directly to the community, the common ground still has not been found.
How long did you do this research?
For the gel research, this thesis was done by a student in 2018. His name is Puja Adi Priyatna, and now he is a second semester profession student. Morever, for the plants themselves, it had been a long time, around 2007 or 2008. When I was studying undergraduate, I began screening about thirty-two types of plants that I brought to Japan. Of the thirty-two plants, I looked for which ones that had the activities. It turned out that three candidate plants produced could be used for osteoporosis treatment. One of the three plants was Jotang. Arriving in Indonesia in 2010, I ran into an animal to test the efficacy of this Jotang plant. In 2018, the research on gel preparations began.
In your opinion, what benefits you got in participating in this activity?
First, there, I met many researchers from everywhere. Secondly, I met a lot of industry parties who were indeed interested in launching herbal products. So, it could be easier to establish cooperation with industry. Last but not least, I could meet my Senpai [senior red.] when I was studying in Japan.
In the future, what is your expectation for this research?
I certainly hope that it will benefit the community. Who knows, there is an industry that is ready to produce and market this gel that can be a direct benefit for the public.
In your opinion, what innovations have the greatest opportunity to benefit the community?
BPOM now has several categories of diseases that are trying to be overcome because they still occur in the community. Well, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis are included in drugs that are encouraged and tried to be occupied by BPOM. So, in my opinion, the research will be focused on this BPOM category. Like tuberculosis, right, there are many cases of this disease in Indonesia. Furthermore, the aspect of technology is also important now. For example, nanotechnology and others.
Tasya Sherina/Tsabitah Virza, Farma Pos 2020
translated by Dhea Tisane
