Bio Farma to Run Clinical Trials on Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President director of the state-owned pharmaceutical holding company, Bio Farma, Honesti Basyir announced on Monday that the clinical trial for COVID-19 vaccines from China’s Sinovac will be conducted within six months. 

“Bio Farma will produce the COVID-19 vaccine in the Q1 of 2021 if the third phase clinical tests progress smoothly,” Basyir wrote in Monday’s written statement. 

Honesti Basyir also mentioned that the clinical tests are scheduled to be complete by January 2021 while the company is preparing a production facility to start the mass-production of the vaccine that is expected to be able to have a maximum production capacity up to 250 million doses. 

The partnership between Bio Farma and Sinovac is also due to the role of the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the State-owned Enterprise Ministry as facilitators. Bio Farma officially received 2,400 vaccines from the Chinese pharmaceutical firm on July 19, 2020, which will later be used in Farma’s third clinical trial on August 3. 

The clinical tests on the potential COVID-19 vaccines will be held at the clinical trial facility at Padjadjaran University’s Faculty of Medicine, which was chosen as it has been deemed to be the most experienced in carrying out clinical tests for vaccines. 

Bio Farma explains that the upcoming test will sample 1,620 subjects that will be chosen based on certain criteria, one of which is that it must be from people aged between 18 to 59 years old.

Read also: Bio Farma to Boost PCR Test Kits Production

AHMAD FIKRI