Jakarta. Indonesia is planning to have another vaccine producer in the country, according to Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

Indonesia currently has the state-run pharmaceutical company Biofarma as one of its vaccine producers. Biofarma has partnered with the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme to produce the HPV vaccine. Biofarma has also produced polio vaccines that the company distributes across the globe in partnership with the humanitarian aid organization Unicef. Just last month, Biofarma announced that it had secured a contract deal worth Rp 1.4 trillion ($88 million) to supply vaccines to international organizations and other countries for next year.

Budi said that Indonesia would have an additional vaccine producer “in the near future”. However, the minister did not go into more details, including the name of the manufacturer and whether it would be a privately owned company. 

“Indonesia used to have one vaccine producer, Biofarma, in the past. But two private companies have already begun producing vaccines domestically in recent years,” Budi was quoted as saying in a press statement.

According to Budi, the Covid-19 pandemic has taught countries the importance of not relying on a single vaccine manufacturer. Indonesia also pushed for more technology transfers on vaccine production with developing nations. 

Just a few months ago, Biofarma closed a deal with Ghanan pharmaceutical company Atlantic Lifesciences to help the West African country produce vaccines. The Indonesian company is also helping with Senegal’s domestic vaccine production.

“Vaccine production must not be concentrated on Global North [or high-income] countries. We need to make sure that we can distribute the vaccine technology to Global South [or developing] nations so we can save more lives,” Budi said.

President Prabowo Subianto recently hosted the executives of the global vaccine alliance Gavi at the palace in Jakarta. Prabowo announced at the time that Indonesia would donate $30 million to Gavi. Budi said that the donation was a way for Indonesia to say thank you to the alliance for providing the country with 110.3 million free vaccine doses worth $684.6 billion. These vaccines have helped many Indonesians during the pandemic.

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