Indonesia gets call to be coronavirus vaccine testing, production hub

Name: Indonesian women in palm oil industry abused and exploited
Uploaded: 2020-11-19T13:00:11.000Z
Duration: 3 min 43 s
Description: Indonesian women in palm oil industry abused and exploited

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’

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Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime and Investment Affairs Luhut Pandjaitan with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday at the White House, where they discussed coronavirus vaccine cooperation. Photo: Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs

Resty Woro Yuniar

Published: 9:00pm, 19 Nov 2020Updated: 1:04pm, 25 Nov 2020

Indonesia said Thursday that it had been approached by several drug makers whose Covid-19 vaccine candidates have shown promising early results to either test or produce their vaccines, moving the country a step closer to becoming Southeast Asia’s vaccine production and distribution hub.

Beijing-based Sinovac has already licensed its Covid-19 vaccine to the Indonesian state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma, which is expected to produce 260 million dual-dose vaccines – enough for nearly half of Indonesia’s 270 million population. Indonesia will also be Sinovac’s vaccine production hub, helping the Chinese company market the products throughout Southeast Asia.

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”.

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.

The news came after Coordinating Minister of Maritime and Investment Affairs Luhut Pandjaitan earlier this week visited the White House, where he held talks with US President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence. The ministry’s official statement said that Pence offered Luhut, a trusted deputy of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, “vaccine production cooperation” between American and Indonesian firms, though it did not specify which firms Pence referred to.

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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Indonesian women in palm oil industry abused and exploited

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