Jakarta. State-owned pharmaceutical giant Bio Farma has closed a deal with Ghana’s Atlantic Lifesciences to help the West African country produce vaccines.

The tourist resort of Bali is currently hosting a gathering of African leaders and top business brass as Indonesia seeks to bolster its partnership with the world’s second-largest continent. The three-day Indonesia-Africa Forum is set to result in $3.5 billion worth of business commitments. The forum listed the signing of a master agreement for a technology transfer between Bio Farma and Atlantic Lifesciences as one of the key outcomes. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo also brought up Bio Farma’s business deal when hosting his Ghanaian counterpart Nana Addo Akufo-Addo on the margins of the Bali forum.

“We welcome the cooperation between Bio Farma and Atlantic Lifesciences. I hope this cooperation can encourage local manufacturing of vaccine products in Ghana, and support vaccine programs in other West African countries,” Jokowi told Akufo-Addo.

Atlantic Lifesciences is a Ghanaian sterile pharmaceutical company. It claims that it specializes in the production of various sterile forms, including large-volume parenteral and vaccines, to name a few. Akufo-Addo is keeping his fingers crossed that the partnership with Bio Farma can be “fruitful” as Ghana intends to bolster its vaccine manufacturing.

“We [Ghana] are determined to advance significantly our own capacity to produce vaccines. The help we are getting from your company [Bio Farma] is very, very useful to us,” Akufo-Addo said at the meeting with Jokowi.

In 2023, Bio Farma signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Atlantic Lifesciences. The MoU involved the transfer of technology for ready-to-fill tetanus-diphtheria vaccines produced by Bio Farma.  

Ghana has been looking to step up its vaccine production to keep diseases at bay. It has established a national vaccine institute aimed at coordinating and supervising domestic vax research, development, and manufacturing.

Ghana is still far from being Indonesia’s key trading partners, and data showed that trade is on a decline. Indonesia-Ghana trade amounted to $182.5 million in 2023, down from $197.2 million recorded the previous year. Bilateral trade reached $96.8 million in the first half of 2024. This is lower compared to the $99.6 million trade posted in the same six-month period in 2023.