Pharmaniaga Bhd wants to manufacture nine of the 11 vaccines used in Malaysia's National Immunisation Programme (NIP) inside the country, up from seven previously planned, according to CodeBlue.
Managing director Zulkifli Jafar said the expanded target follows a memorandum of collaboration the company signed with Indonesia's state-owned vaccine maker PT Bio Farma on October 8. The deal is intended to bolster Malaysia's vaccine security and build domestic manufacturing capacity through technology transfer, he told reporters in Putrajaya on the sidelines of the PharmaView Expert Series 2026.
Under the NIP, about 11 vaccines are in use. Zulkifli said Pharmaniaga had been working towards developing seven of them locally, and the Bio Farma tie-up lifts that figure to nine, CodeBlue reported.
Why it matters
Malaysia currently buys all of its vaccines from overseas suppliers, which leaves the national immunisation schedule exposed to supply interruptions. Zulkifli put the dependence plainly, telling reporters that the country's vaccines are "100 per cent fully imported" — the reason, he said, for the push to localise as much production as possible.
The NIP shields children against 13 vaccine-preventable diseases. They include tuberculosis, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumococcal disease, Japanese encephalitis and human papillomavirus.
Bringing production onshore could also cut costs. Zulkifli estimated localisation might reduce vaccine expenses by roughly 30 per cent, which would ease the government's procurement load. Actual volumes, however, would hinge on government purchasing needs, and those can shift with vaccination coverage rates and budget limits.
Polio first, then rabies and Tdap
PT Bio Farma, an Indonesian state-owned pharmaceutical company, has spent more than a century developing and manufacturing vaccines. It is best known for producing Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) and polio vaccines.
Zulkifli said Pharmaniaga would look at polio vaccines with Bio Farma first, then move on to other products such as rabies and tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccines.
The collaboration is also meant to deepen cooperation between the two countries in vaccine manufacturing and could open doors to other Asean markets.
Scale is a central problem for Malaysia. Zulkifli noted that Indonesia's population of about 285 million makes large-scale vaccine production more economically viable than Malaysia's roughly 34 million to 35 million people.
"We are not at the stage of bulk manufacturing," he said, explaining that economies of scale work against the country: producing in bulk for 34 or 35 million people drives medicine prices up rather than down.
Pharmaniaga's approach will be gradual. The company will first explore importing and distributing selected vaccines from Indonesia before shifting towards making them at home. Zulkifli said Pharmaniaga holds the rights to bring in the products and supply them to the government. Those trading arrangements cover finished vaccines imported for distribution in Malaysia, not local manufacturing. The company intends to localise production step by step as its manufacturing capabilities and regulatory clearances fall into place.
PCV13 pulled forward to 2027
Pharmaniaga is aiming for the third or fourth quarter of 2027 to launch its first locally manufactured vaccine, the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), which guards against pneumococcal disease.
Zulkifli said the documentation for PCV13 has been submitted and the company is waiting on approval from the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA). He said the timeline had been moved up from 2028, with the exact quarter depending on the regulator's decision.
Two further vaccine launches are pencilled in for 2028: the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and the EV71 vaccine, which targets a strain of enterovirus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease. A hexavalent vaccine, combining protection against six diseases in a single shot, is slated for 2029.
On HPV, Zulkifli estimated demand at around 760,000 doses. He said the vaccine's high price has constrained the government's ability to widen coverage to everyone who might benefit. The government is also weighing extending HPV vaccination to males, on top of the existing programme for females, a move that would raise demand further.
The Bio Farma partnership sits within a wider effort by Pharmaniaga to expand domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing. Zulkifli said the company is separately working with other technology providers on generic medicines and biopharmaceutical products. It has also obtained grants from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) to back vaccine development and shore up local manufacturing capacity.
The vaccine localisation drive marks a fresh growth avenue for Pharmaniaga after it exited Practice Note 17 (PN17) status in March 2026. The group was placed in the financially distressed category in February 2023, following a RM552.3 million provision for slow-moving Covid-19 vaccine inventories. It completed a financial regularisation plan in August 2025 that involved a rights issue, a RM223.7 million private placement and a RM520 million capital reduction.
Since returning to profit in the first quarter of 2024, Pharmaniaga has posted 10 straight profitable quarters. Its most recent reported net profit was RM12.49 million for the second quarter of 2026.
What to watch: whether the NPRA clears PCV13 in time for a 2027 launch, and how quickly the Bio Farma arrangement moves from imported finished doses to vaccines made on Malaysian soil.
