BUMN Covid-19 Vaccine Will be Prioritized for Booster

One of the original Indonesian-made Covid-19 vaccines, the BUMN Vaccine, has finally entered phase 3 clinical trials. PT Biofarma (Persero) President Director Honesti Basyir ensures that the BUMN vaccine will be prioritized as a third dose or booster vaccine.

Honesti added, that BUMN vaccines will also be prioritized as vaccines for children under 18 years of age.

“The priority is for boosters and children because we still lack the supply of vaccines for children and not many types of vaccines have been licensed to be given to children,” Honesti explained in the kick-off of Phase 3 Vaccine Clinical Trials of BUMN, Semarang, Thursday ( 9/6/2022).

Honesti said that the phase 3 clinical trial process is targeted to be completed in July 2022, then it will receive an emergency use authorization (EUA) permit from the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM).

The third phase clinical trial of the BUMN Vaccine will be given to 4,050 subjects with an age limit of 18 years to 70 years.

If the clinical trial goes well and gets an emergency use authorization (EUA), Bio Farma will start producing the vaccine in July 2022.

Meanwhile, for the vaccine production capacity of BUMN, Honesti said it reached 120 million doses per year.

“We have prepared a capacity of 120 million doses per year, and we will produce it according to need,” Honesti said.

To note, the BUMN vaccine is a type of vaccine produced by Indonesia which was later developed by a BUMN holding, namely PT Biofarma (Persero) with Baylor College of Medicine, United States (US).

SOE Minister Erick Thohir said that the SOE vaccine was one type of vaccine that was successfully included in the list of vaccine candidates released by WHO.

“In the context, we can not only position ourselves as poor for discovery rather than science or the health industry as a whole,” said Erick on the same occasion.

Currently, the Ministry of SOEs is pushing for a breakthrough so that herbal health becomes an alternative to reduce dependence on medicinal raw materials.

“Not only Indonesia but also the world, because we can’t allow our nation to have continuous medical treatment abroad. Because this is the transformation we hope God willing, we will continue to push,” said Erick.