Bio Farma president director M. Rahman Roestan told the press recently that the business partnership could be in the form of exporting ready-to-use products, or intermediate products that need further processing by the importing countries.

“Our deal with Morocco, for example, could be under a transfer of technology scheme as they have the capability to process it further. We will supply [Morocco] with intermediate products,” he said after attending a parallel event during the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group in Nusa Dua, Bali, recently.

Previously, Bio Farma also carried out similar partnerships with businesses in India and Mexico, Rahman said, to which the company exported intermediate products.

“Fellow vaccine producers are not seen as competitors, but instead as partners to eradicate infectious diseases. Moreover, if we build our own manufactory there, it won’t be effective and instead will be costly, so it is better to send the active ingredients to each country, then the countries will do the finishing process,” he said.

The type of vaccines that Bio Farma will export to African countries are vaccine for bacterial diseases, such as tetanus, diptheria, pertussis and Haemophilus influenza type B (HIB). The company previously exported the vaccines to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan and Morocco.

Currently, Bio Farma’s total production capacity stands at 2 billion doses per year, 40 percent of which is for export and the remaining for the domestic market.

Aside from Africa, Rahman went on to say that the firm also saw potential in several Latin American and Asian countries because of the lack of presence of fully equipped vaccine producers in the two regions.

Further, Bio Farma marketing director Sri Harsi Teteki said she was upbeat about the firm’s goal to expand their market in Africa with a mandate from the Finance Ministry to the Indonesian Export Financing Agency, or Indonesia Eximbank (LPEI), to provide export facilities in the form of financing, guarantee and insurance to encourage exports to African countries.

“We hope with the facility from LPEI, our worries on patchy payment from African countries can be resolved, which will make us more confident to do business in the continent,” she said.

Indonesia Eximbank will utilize the National Interest Account (NIA) scheme to provide financing to buyers from Africa for their purchase of Indonesian products.

The scheme was selected as exports to non-traditional markets are less feasible and have higher financing and political risks, according to LPEI.

Bio Farma also recently received assurance of vaccine research assistance from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a foundation established by United States tech tycoon Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates.

The assurance came directly from Melinda during her recent visit to Bali to attend the annual meetings, during which she, alongside Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, spoke about technology during a session.

“They [the Gates Foundation] want to help vaccine research in Indonesia through Bio Farma with a mission to increase vaccine supply from Asian countries and to avoid a monopoly by Western countries,” Sri Mulyani said.

When asked about the new research assistance, Bio Farma’s Rahman said his firm and the Gates Foundation were still in discussions.

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