Indonesia gets call to be coronavirus vaccine testing, production hub
- The country’s food and drug agency said Pfizer, AstraZeneca and the maker of the Sputnik V vaccine were all seeking partnerships
- The news followed a meeting earlier this week in which US Vice-President Mike Pence promised Indonesian officials ‘vaccine production cooperation’
Penny Lukito, the head of Indonesia’s food and drugs agency, BPOM, told reporters on Thursday that the agency had also been approached by American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and British firm AstraZeneca, as well as by the developer of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines “to talk about the possibility of launching clinical trials for their Covid-19 vaccines in Indonesia”.
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These companies are likely to seek “pharma partners” in Indonesia to either sponsor clinical trials or produce their vaccines domestically, she said. The government has also signed a letter of intent to buy 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“I think this pandemic has provided opportunities for all parts of Indonesia’s pharmaceutical industry to grow … not only our state-owned pharmaceutical companies,” she said, adding that the country’s US$9 billion pharmaceuticals industry has the capacity and experience to produce human vaccines.
Penny said that vaccine distribution will be a challenge for Indonesia’s mass inoculation plan, as some vaccines, such as Pfizer’s, require extremely cold storage, at minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit).
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The Russian government had sent a letter to the Indonesia’s Health Ministry in September over the possibility of Sputnik V vaccine distribution, procurement and clinical trials. Preliminary results on the vaccine, which is currently in phase-three clinical trials, show its efficacy rate at 92 per cent, according to its developer, Gamaleya Research Institute.
In August, Indonesia launched phase-three clinical trials for the Sinovac vaccine on 1,620 volunteers, and it is awaiting preliminary results that will be used by BPOM to decide whether to give a greenlight to the government’s emergency use plan.
The preliminary results will analyse what level of immunogenicity – the ability of the vaccine to provoke an immune response – is found in the volunteers.
A tie-up with Pfizer and other top-tier vaccine makers, either through clinical trials, vaccine manufacturing, or ready-to-use vaccine procurement, could help Indonesia overcome the pandemic that has infected over 483,000 and killed over 15,000. It also has battered the economy – Indonesia recorded its first recession in over two decades after GDP contracted 3.49 per cent in the third quarter of this year.
New York-based Pfizer and partner BioNTech on Wednesday said a final analysis of clinical trial data showed that its Covid-19 vaccine was 95 per cent effective, paving the way for the company to apply for the first US regulatory authorisation for a coronavirus shot within days.
The vaccine developed by Britain’s AstraZeneca and Oxford University has also shown promising early results. Data from mid-stage trials, reported in part last month but published in full in The Lancet medical journal on Thursday, suggest that the vaccine produced a strong immune response in older adults, giving hope that it may protect some of those most vulnerable to the disease.
Indonesia has also made deals to procure vaccines from Chinese producers CanSino Biologics and Sinopharm, who on Wednesday said that nearly one million people had taken their vaccines through China’s emergency use programme. No serious adverse reactions had been reported from those who received the vaccines, Sinopharm said in an article on social media WeChat, citing a recent interview by Sinopharm chairman Liu Jingzhen.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg and Reuters
