Pharma cooperation key to global health development

Improving care

Lim Soeyantho, deputy president director of Indonesian pharmaceutical company Combiphar, said health is important in boosting both productivity and GDP.

Lim said his company is also working to evaluate Chinese vaccines that can improve preventive healthcare in Indonesia, adding that he hopes such production can support other countries in Southeast Asia.

"Basic science has no nationality," Leif Johansson, chairman of biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, said. "The more we can cooperate, the more we can learn from each other and the better we will be able to make good medicines."

During the Boao forum, Combiphar signed a memorandum of understanding with Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products and AstraZeneca, with the aim to promote localized production and commercialization of the Shenzhen company's COVID-19 vaccine and others in Indonesia.

Miao Xiang, president of Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products, said the cooperation of regulatory authorities from different countries is important for the resilience of the industry.

China is working closely with the World Health Organization in terms of vaccine regulation and has passed a WHO assessment on its vaccine regulatory system, said Qin, adding that this provides a good foundation for Chinese vaccines to go abroad.

Qin said China will continue its health cooperation with the international community in the post-pandemic era.

"All of these efforts are aimed at making sure good medical products, wherever they are developed, can be rolled out quickly for global use," he said.