Erick Thohir Appreciates Holding of Pharmaceutical Prepares Handling Covid-19 for Indonesia

Minister of SOEs, Erick Thohir (left), accompanied by President Director of Bio Farma, Honesti Basyir (center), visited the Covid-19 Vaccine fill and finish facility at Bio Farma (7/10). During this working visit, Erick Thohir appreciated the readiness of the Pharmaceutical BUMN Holding, in its readiness to provide vaccines and drugs for Covid-19 healing therapy. (Photo : Andzhar | Corporate Communication Bio Farma)

(Bandung 7/11) The Minister of State-Owned Enterprises of the Republic of Indonesia, Erick Thohir, visited the Holding for Pharmaceutical, Bio Farma, to monitor the readiness of production and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. The visit which was conducted on July 10 was attended and received by the President Director of Bio Farma Honesti Basyir, Director of Transformation and Digital Bio Farma, Soleh Ayubi, Director of Operations Bio Farma M. Rahman Roestan and Senior Executive Vice President (SEVP) Research and Development. Bio Farma Development, Adriansjah Azhari.

During the visit, Erick Thohir visited the fill and finish facilities for Covid-19 Vaccine production in Building 43, Distribution Facilities, and Command Centers to monitor the vaccine journey, from Bio Farma, to the final destination / Health Service Facilities (Fasyankes).

Erick Thohir appreciated Bio Farma's readiness to provide the Covid-19 vaccine for the community. "I want to directly check the certainty of our vaccine production, Bio Farma is certainly trusted to continue to produce vaccines, not only Covid vaccines but also other vaccines, such as polio vaccines, and others," said Erick.

"For the covid vaccine itself, up to now we already have a stock of approximately 105 million, of which 62 million have been delivered and we will add more later. Hopefully this July - August 18 -20 million per month." said Eric.

Erick Thohir added, on this occasion also Bio Farma is combining a database with Kimia Farma, Indofarma, about the presence of drugs needed in the treatment of Covid-19.

Meanwhile, Honesti Basyir stated "Holding Pharmaceutical SOEs are ready to assist the government's program in handling the Covid-19 pandemic, from providing vaccines, treatment, and earlier we also saw our dashboard system to ensure distribution production, we guarantee that pharmaceutical holdings are ready to help. government program in handling the COVID-19 pandemic," said Honesti.

Besides that, Honesti also conveyed about the Red and White Vaccine and BUMN vaccine which were initiated as an initiative to ensure vaccine independence, so that we do not depend on imports.

“Red and White Vaccine itself consists of 6 universities and 2 research institutes that conduct research and collaborate with Bio Farma such as Eyckman. On the advice of the Minister, we also initiated cooperation with foreign research institutions for the development of SOE vaccines. Bio Farma has collaborated with Baylor College of Medicine and we are now in the preclinical stage,” Honesti said.

Honesti Basyir added, "It is hoped that with the support of all parties in March 2022 we will be able to get Emergency Use Authorization from the POM Agency and in April 2022 we will be able to produce, the production facilities are ready.

"The support that we do is from clinical trials from the ministry, the base platform used is recombinant. This is also one of our initiatives to enrich our mastery of technology so that Indonesia can truly be more independent in terms of national health security,” said Honesti. (ed/vn/ss)