The development of the Merah Putih vaccine for COVID-19 is confirmed to continue despite facing a number of challenges. Public expectations for the birth of a COVID-19 virus vaccine made in Indonesia are very high.
This national vaccine is expected to be a long-term solution in repelling the development of the virus, as well as being a source of pride for the quality of national research.
"Red and White Vaccine Research is still ongoing, which is based on yeast or yeast cells in the process of further development. The production level is also in accordance with the level required by the industry, in this case PT. Bio Farma," said Acting Head of PRBM Eijkman Wien Kusharyoto in webinar Talk to Scientists, Wednesday (26/1/2022).
Supporting Wien's statement, Eijkman-BRIN Molecular Biology Research Center researcher, Tedjo Sasmono said, currently the development of the Red and White vaccine being researched by the Eijkman-BRIN PRBM team is already in the downstream stage at an industrial partner, namely PT Bio Farma.
"We hope that in the near future we can conduct pre-clinical and clinical trials. Hopefully the COVID-19 vaccine created by the nation's children can contribute to the handling of the pandemic and become a vehicle for the nation's independence in vaccine research," he added.
On a separate occasion, Lab Researchers. Therapeutics and Vaccines, Andri Wardiana said, until now Indonesia has not succeeded in making vaccines or other biological drugs independently.
"In a sense, starting from the initial design and only then being able to transfer technology like what Biofarma and several other pharmaceutical companies have done. In order for Indonesia to produce its own vaccine, it must start with the cooperation of many parties," said Andri.
He gave an example, in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford/Astrazeneca, various institutions provided mutual support. Various institutions work together to produce one type of vaccine that gets Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) at the beginning.
"We have to start like that, experts from various fields gather and work together to realize the main goal, namely the independence of vaccine production. Comprehensive support from various parties including academics/researchers, industry players and other supporters, including political will from the government is also needed," he said.
In line with Wien and Tedjo, Andri also hopes that the Red and White Vaccine program can be used as a momentum to realize the independence of domestic vaccines.
The development of the Red and White Vaccine has been carried out by seven teams, namely a team from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), University of Indonesia (UI) which was divided into two teams, LBM Eijkman, Padjadjaran University (Unpad), LIPI and Airlangga University (Unair).
Red and White Vaccine Challenge
Previously, the Head of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Laksana Tri Handoko submitted a report on the development of the red and white vaccine to the leadership and members of Commission VII DPR RI at a hearing at the Nusantara Building, Jakarta, Monday (24/1).
Handoko emphasized that in the context of the Merah Putih vaccine, the main problem faced was that Indonesia had never had an experienced team until clinical trials in developing vaccines from the start.
The experience of the research team in the development of new vaccines to preclinical trials. For this reason, all existing teams work hard to carry out experiments to get optimal results.
"Most of the vaccines produced at Biofarma are still licensed. This is a challenge for BRIN researchers," said Handoko as quoted from the official BRIN website.
Another problem, said Handoko, is that Indonesia does not yet have limited testing facilities with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards. In addition, there is no BSL 3 animal facility as an important facility for conducting pre-clinical trials.
"Our first pre-clinical test using mice, we already have in Cibinong, but for the test using macaque we are not ready," said Handoko.
For this reason, BRIN seeks to build a limited test facility with GMP standards and a BSL 3 animal test facility for macaques with a capacity of 80 individuals. Prior to the integration of research institutes into BRIN, LIPI was willing to build BSL 3 facilities, but was not ready to make sustainable programs to utilize these facilities.
"After this integration, we have the competence to build and create sustainable utilization programs," he added.
With the construction of these two facilities, Handoko hopes to accelerate the completion of vaccines in Indonesia, not only for the Red and White vaccines, but also for other vaccines.