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Bloomberg
An Indonesian state-owned drugmaker plans to start human trials of Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s coronavirus vaccine next month and aims to begin commercial production early next year.
PT Bio Farma will administer the vaccine supplied by Beijing-based Sinovac on 1,620 people in the age group of 18 to 59 years, company’s President Director Honesti Basyir said in a statement. The trials will be supervised by the faculty of medicine at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, he said.
Bio Farma has secured 2,400 doses of Sinovac’s shot, called CoronaVac, and the clinical trial is expected to be completed in six months, Basyir said. Sinovac has said its shot is safe and capable of eliciting an immune response from human trials with the company also winning approval for Phase III trials on humans in Brazil.
Indonesia tied up with Sinovac to secure access to a vaccine as its own efforts to develop a deterrent against the pathogen is expected to take longer. The world’s fourth-most populous nation is the worst virus-hit country in Southeast Asia, with a death toll of 4,320 and confirmed cases nearing 90,000.