Bio Farma Boss: Making An IndoVac Vaccine Not Using The State Budget

Dirktur Utama Bio Farma, Honesti Basyir. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - President Director of PT Bio Farma (Persero) Honesti Basyir said that the cost of making the IndoVac vaccine or BUMN does not use the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN). Honesti said the manufacturing budget actually came from the company's equity. From the beginning to the third phase of clinical trials, Honesti said, his party had disbursed a budget of Rp. 300 billion. This nominal is beyond the current production costs. "Budget has only reached Rp300 billion in clinical trials, then there will also be costs for production," Honesti said at a press conference in the Central Jakarta area, Wednesday, October 26. Specifically for the IndoVac vaccine production budget, said Honesti, it will depend on government assignments. This means that the more vaccines are produced, the greater the funds incurred by the company. The number of vaccine doses produced by Bio Farma will be adjusted to government requests or needs. Honesti also ensured that the company's financial structure was strong and stable even though the holding company's pharmaceutical BUMN had to use the budget independently when producing vaccines. "But the point is that our finances are still very sufficient, if we get more assignments. Everything we spend until this third clinical trial is Rp. 300 billion, everything is equivalent or internal funds," he said. For your information, currently the number of BUMN vaccines produced by Bio Farma has only reached 1.7 million doses from the production target of 20 million doses by the end of 2022. Of the 1.7 million doses, only 300,000 doses were released by the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM). On that occasion, Honesti also ensured that the number of IndoVac vaccine productions would continue to be increased to reach 20 million doses, according to the government's target by the end of this year. "What we have now is produced, yes, it's 1.7 million doses, this has been released with only 300,000 BPOM, so there are still processed," he said.