Bio Farma: Independence In Domestic Vaccine Production Needs Collaboration

Illustration - Workers label vaccines at the PT Bio Farma (Persero) laboratory, Bandung, West Java. ANTARA PHOTOS/Raisan Al Farisi/ws.

JAKARTA - Bio Farma's Director of Transformation and Digital, Soleh Ayubi, said collaboration is one of the important keys to the success of domestic vaccine development.

"Collaboration is needed not only nationally, but internationally and requires support from all parties, both from the government, regulations, and academia," said Soleh Ayubi at the National Forum for Independence and Resilience of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Industry at the Courtryard Hotel, Nusa Dua, Bali, Wednesday, August 24.

He said vaccines have long product development times and expensive investments. For example, the concept of a laboratory in Kendall Square which is the research center of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"There, all the companies that have worked together for product development are well consolidated, including Pfizer, GSK, and Moderna," he said.

He hopes that Indonesia has a similar concept by building startup companies and collaborating with various universities to accelerate pharmacy and medical equipment.

"One of them is Bio Saliva, which is a collaboration between Bio Farma and the Biotechnology startup Nusantics," he said.

Bio Saliva is a test tool to detect COVID-19 using the gargling method. This method is much more convenient for detecting the COVID-19 virus in the body of patients with or without symptoms.

The product development process involved more than 400 samples of positive COVID-19 patients, both outpatients and inpatients, and validation research for 7 months.

The validation test has been completed jointly with the Faculty of Medicine, Diponegoro University, Diponegoro National Hospital (RSND), and Kariadi Doctor Hospital (RSDK).

Soleh Ayubi said that Bio Farma has invested through the Bio Health Fund as much as 20 to 100 million US dollars to finance the research and development of several national and international start-ups in the health sector.

"We need the support of the pharmaceutical industry to support and accelerate product development in order to increase the independence of pharmaceutical and medical supplies," he said.