Indonesian vaccine manufacturer Bio Farma has formed a 10-year partnership with The Coalition For Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) in Norway to boost the manufacturing of outbreak vaccines.
As a response to COVID-19, Indonesia and the ASEAN region wish to combat future possible outbreaks and pandemics. CEPI will in that regard provide funding of up to $15 million to expand their capacity and support their establishment of new technologies in order to combat new viral threats.
“The world needs to be able to respond rapidly, and equitably, if we are to curtail future outbreaks before they mushroom into pandemics. Our collaboration with Bio Farma will contribute to this goal by expanding the company’s world-class manufacturing facilities to include the very latest mRNA and viral vector technologies which will be capable of producing outbreak vaccines in as little as 100 days,” CEO of CEPI, Dr. Richard Hatchett commented.
A step closer to better global health
The new collaboration will help Bio Farma to implement a laboratory to be used for testing and development of viral vector technologies – which are tools that encode a desired protein or antigen to provoke an immune response.
President Director of Bio Farma, Shadiq Akasya, is optimistic that the partnership will be a stepping stone to ensure better global health.
“We believe that by combining our strengths, we are capable of expanding our services in order to address issues on global demand for life science products, reaching out to more people in need, and also to mitigate future health crises,” she said, and concluded:
“We are eager to explore mutually beneficial opportunities in overcoming challenges hence achieving our shared goals to improving the quality of life.”
Source: CEPI
