YAKARTA – The coronavirus pandemic has driven Indonesia’s cross over self-sufficiency in pharmaceuticals, with the state-run Bio Farma participating in a vaccine with Sinovac Biotech from China and a company from the United Arab Emirates.
The Indonesian state-owned company considers mergers to represent the long-term advancement and production of vaccines, and even new medicines, in the fourth most populous country in the world.
Bio Farma announced Friday that it had signed an agreement with Sinovac. The Indonesian company will import 50 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine from November to March 2021, according to a press release. “[We need to] complete our great task and temporarily distribute it to Indonesian society,” said Honesti Basyir, CEO of Bio Farma.
Sinovac, a joint venture between Peking University and Hong Kong corporations, will also prioritize Bandung-based Bio Farma as an additional source until late 2021. The Chinese company is one of many corporations in the country that has lately been running a Phase 3 clinic. vaccine trials.
In July, Bio Farma introduced trials in Indonesia for 1,600 participants in Sinovac Phase 3 trials in several countries, in addition to Bangladesh and Brazil. If successful, Indonesian biotechnology plans to start producing the vaccine locally under a license that is expected to provide Sinovac.
Bio Farma is building a new facility that will more than double its production capacity until the end of this year, offering 250 million doses consistent with the year, all of which will be reserved for home use.
Kimia Farma, one of Bio Farma’s indexed subsidiaries, announced Saturday that it will collaborate with G42 Healthcare Holdings of the United Arab Emirates, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based generation corporate Group 42 to study and develop, market and distribute a coronavirus vaccine. G42 has an ongoing collaboration with the Chinese company Sinopharm, which is also in Phase 3 clinical trials.
For CEO Basyir, the goal is clear: “Bio Farm will gain a generation of movement while [vaccine production during] phase 3 clinical trials is underway.”
“Through these collaborations, Indonesia will be in a strategic position for the global call not only for COVID-19 vaccines, but also of other pandemic vaccines when necessary,” he added at a press convention on July 16. As a manufacturer of generic vaccines, Bio Farma exports to more than 140 countries and seeks to become a leading biotechnology company in Asia.
At the same time, Bio Farma intends to expand its own Indonesian vaccine. The company established a local consortium with the Eijkman Institute of Molecular Biology based in Jakarta and other study agencies and universities in May. It hopes to expand a prototype COVID-19 vaccine until the middle of next year and begin production by mid-2022.
Rival Kalbe Farma, with a 6% domestic market share, is partnering with South Korean’s Genexine to expand vaccines, with phase 2 trials in Indonesia scheduled for the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, a little-known biotechnology company, BCHT Bioteknologi Indonesia, is partnering with Sinopharm.
This resolution is vital for the Indonesian pharmaceutical industry, which would otherwise still depend on other countries for coronavirus vaccines. As analyst Ahmad Maghfur Usman of the values company Nomura on the bio Farma-Sinovac association pointed out: “The bulk antigenic products of the vaccine will have to come from Sinovac, as it is a new vaccine. Therefore, it depends in large part on the production of Sinovac. capacity.”
Approximately 90% of the raw tissues used by Indonesian drug manufacturers, which add active ingredients, are imported: 60% of them from China and 30% from India. This dependence on imports has become more apparent since the pandemic began. On Sunday, Indonesia reported a total of 153,535 cases of coronavirus, adding 6,680 deaths.
In May, according to the country’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, disruptions in the chain of origin due to the pandemic prompted Indonesian prescription drugs to operate between 55% and 66% of their capacity, while costs increased.
“The pandemic has been a learning procedure for all of us, adding to Indonesia,” State Business Minister Erick Thohir, director of Bio Farma, said in May. “Starting next year, Indonesia needs that when it comes to physical security, [we will be] less dependent on the chain of origin in other countries.”
Kimia Farma signed an agreement in July with national oil and fuel giant Pertamina for Indonesia’s first local acetaminophen production, one of the active ingredients imported across the country. Pertamina began to seriously increase its petrochemical capacity last year.
Business progression director Imam Faturohman added that the corporation works on the progression of generics for antiviral drugs, favipiravir and remdesivir, which were used to treat patients with coronavirus. Kimia needs to reduce imports of raw fabrics by 24% through 2024, compared to the 3% expected for this year.
Indonesia’s pharmaceutical market rose to 88.4 trillion rupees ($6 billion) in 2019, up from 65.9 trillion rupees in 2016. The increase is largely due to the government’s 2014 universal fitness canopy program, which aims to protect the entire population of 268 million. . In June, canopyage reached 80%.
Of course, the pandemic has broken the Indonesian market as a whole. Fitch Solutions says its chemical, pharmaceutical and classical medicine industry grew at an annual rate of just 5.6% in the first 3 months ending in March, at 11.5% compared to last year. However, the knowledge analysis company remains optimistic about the health market in Indonesia.
“The expansion of its average elegance and the advent of universal fitness care have stimulated demand in almost every facet of the industry, from hospitals to prescription drugs and medical devices,” Fitch said in a Memorandum on August 11.
The trend is in other primary economies in Southeast Asia, according to the foreign pharmaceutical events organization CPhI, where there is a proven generic production capacity that represents a significant percentage of the region’s pharmaceutical revenue. Most countries in the region also rely heavily on China and India for raw materials.
The pandemic inspired regional governments to focus more on achieving self-sufficiency in active pharmaceutical ingredients and other key raw materials, the report says.
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