Indonesia- If the COVID-19 scenario is deemed endemic, PT Bio Farma (Persero) is looking for an import market for the Red and White Vaccine.
“When COVID-19 becomes endemic, humans will need it; it will be vaccinated once every six months,” Honesti Basyir, Director of PT Bio Farma, said on Monday (6/6/2022) in Jakarta.
According to him, the domestic COVID-19 vaccine market will be less relevant during the endemic phase than it will be during the pandemic phase, thus Bio Farma will concentrate on international market opportunities, such as the Polio Vaccine, which has already been exported to various nations.
Honesti stated that he will require an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the World Health Organization in order to use the ability to export COVID-19 vaccinations (WHO).
The Red and White Vaccine was created by Universitas Airlangga (Unair) and PT Biotis and is now being developed as a domestic COVID-19 vaccine. The Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology (LBM) and PT Bio Farma collaborated on the Red and White Vaccine, as well as PT Bio Farma’s relationship with Boulevard Medicine.
The vaccine’s third and final stage of clinical trials will begin soon. All of these vaccinations should have received EUA accreditation from BPOM RI by the end of July 2022.
However, according to Honesti, Bio Farma will need an advanced stage approval from WHO in the form of an EUA before it can commercialise the COVID-19 vaccine on a global scale. “When domestic needs are addressed, the production has export worth,” he continued.
Honesti went on to say that Bio Farma’s COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial procedure has cost the corporation roughly Rp. 120 billion so far. “We already have our own facilities for the production phase,” he stated, according to Antaranews.com.