JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – A total of 2,400 vaccine Covid-19 from Sinovac, China has arrived at Bio Farma and will be in phase three clinical trials on August 2020.
Director of Bio Farma Honesti Basyir in his press release on Monday (7/20/2020) said the clinical trial of Covid-19 vaccine was scheduled to run for six months, so it was targeted to be completed in January 2021.
“If the clinical phase of the Covid-19 vaccine phase 3 runs smoothly, then Bio Farma will produce it in the first quarter of 2021, and we have prepared its production facilities at Bio Farma, with a maximum production capacity of 250 million doses,” Honesti said.
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Honesti said, the reason for choosing Sinovac as a partner was the vaccine platform / vaccine manufacturing method used by Sinovac, which is the same as the competency held by Bio Farma today.
With the inactivation method, Bio Farma already has experience in making vaccines such as the Pertussis vaccine.
Vaccine which came on Sunday still requires several more stages before clinical trials can be carried out in August 2020 and the stages that must be passed include testing in the Bio Farma Laboratory and several other permits.
The Covid-19 vaccine clinical trial, will be carried out at the Clinical Test Center at the Faculty of Medicine, Padjadjaran University, which will take as many as 1,620 subjects with ages ranging from 18 to 59 years, with certain criteria.
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Meanwhile, the remainder of the vaccine will be used for lab tests in several laboratories including Bio Farma and the National Food and Drug Testing Center (PPOMN).
In the clinical trial of Covid-19 vaccine, Bio Farma acts as a sponsor, collaborating with various parties including the RI Health Research and Development Agency (Balitbangkes) Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia, as medical advisor and conducting neutralization antibody titers.
In addition to Baltbangkes, Bio Farma cooperates with BPOM RI as a regulator, and of course with FK Unpad as an institution that has experience in conducting clinical trials of vaccines circulating in Indonesia.
The development of the Covid-19 vaccine is one of five Bio Farma scenarios, in dealing with the spread of the COV2 SARS virus that causes Covid-19, among others, production realtime polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), convalescent plasma therapy, mobile laboratory BSL 3, and making viral transport media (VTM).
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