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Bio Farma to start coronavirus vaccine clinical trial in August

21 July 2020 15:55

JAKARTA - State-owned pharmaceutical holding company PT Bio Farma (Persero) will commence a clinical trial for the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine involving 1,620 participants in August.

2,400 vaccines, produced by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech Ltd, were handed to Bio Farma last week and will be internally tested at Bio Farma's laboratory before a clinical trial at Padjadjaran University, Bandung.

"The vaccines will be internally tested at Bio Farma's lab, but the clinical trial will be carried out by Padjadjaran University," Bio Farma Research & Development Project Integration Manager Dr Neni Nurainy told Kompas.com, Monday (20/7).

The clinical trial aims to measure the effectiveness of the Sinovac vaccine in fighting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). According to Dr Nurainy, Bio Farma's compiled data is enough to convince that the vaccine is safe for use.

"The clinical trial will actually take quite a long time, but we have enough data that proves that this vaccine is safe and effective, and thus an emergency use authority will be issued," Dr Nurainy explained.

An emergency use authority, she added, is a regulation to speed up production of the vaccine with adequate data basis during the phase 3 clinical trial. The clinical trial, set to commence in August, is targeted to run for six months before mass production commences in the first quarter of 2021.

"We have prepared a production facility at Bio Farma with production capacity of 250 million doses," Bio Farma CEO Honesti Basyir said in an official statement. (MS)

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