Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank, Turkish scientist Professor who developed the Covid-19 vaccine with the BioNTech company. Dr. Ugur Sahin in Turkey would discuss about making manufacturing partners. TÜBİTAK President Prof. Dr. Prof. Stating that he gave instructions for a face-to-face meeting with Şahin, Minister Varank said, “We are determined to develop our own vaccine. Ugur Hoca, founded beautiful sentences about Turkey. He really wants to establish a joint R&D center here. " said.
Minister Varank received the Chairman of the Economic Reporters Association (EMD) Turgay Türker and accompanying board members. Varank answered the questions of EMD managers at the meeting where the activities of the Ministry in 2020 were evaluated and the 2021 vision was discussed.
FIRST MEETING IS ON JANUARY 31
We held the first coronavirus meeting on January 31, 2020, in consultation with TÜBİTAK, our ministers and our Vice President. I wonder how we can give a contribution as Turkey? There was not even a diagnostic kit at that time. Can we develop a diagnostic kit, medicine, vaccine? It was a delegation of our scientists. Scientists were hesitant about the vaccine. Vaccination processes take a very long time around the world. Can we do something quickly, is sufficient capacity in Turkey? "Even if we develop a vaccine, there is no facility where we can produce it." We had teachers who said.
POTENTIAL TO TURKEY
Then we gathered our teachers in March. 'Look, we are creating a platform TUBITAK Turkey Covidien-19 Platform. We invite all our scientists. You will not set long goals for us, what business do you have that can achieve results in a year? Let's work together. We will meet whatever you want, scholarships to students, machinery, products, money, materials for human resources, but we want a quick result from you. we said. One of the scientists in our potential we saw that day was not aware of the fact that in Turkey.
THE CAPACITY OF OUR SCIENCE PEOPLE ARE NOT BACK
First, 14 projects, 8 vaccines, 6 drug development projects came. Later, it had 17 projects. Only Turkey TUBITAK-19 Platform Covidien vaccine as 8, 9 began to support the drug development project. We contacted the ecosystem from abroad. We started to visit infrastructure in Turkey and Turkey have seen that the ingenuity of the private sector and the pharmaceutical industry has invested heavily in vaccines. These infrastructures are waiting idle since there is no production in these areas. The opposition said, "If you had not closed the Refik Saydam Hygiene Institute, things would have worked out." he criticizes. We did not close the institute. The last vaccine was produced in 1998. Since then, there has been no activity related to vaccine production. Vaccination business has developed so rapidly in the world that we have not had the opportunity to update that infrastructure. There may be a financial and human resource shortage. A vaccine production capacity in Turkey have already been destroyed. This has nothing to do with the AK Party. We gathered our teachers, we will follow them one by one, and we are. Three days ago we had a meeting with our teachers at night. We are in constant communication. We have seen that we are not behind people abroad in terms of the capacity of our scientists. When thrown to the state's capacity circuit this potential in Turkey. Not only under this platform, but also other teachers work.
PHASE STUDY IN JANUARY
Three of our teachers are in phase 1, that is, human work. In the facilities where these products will be produced, 3 private sector companies have received certificates from the Ministry of Health that they can produce at world standards. One of our teachers even completed the pilot production. He made his application to the Ministry of Health. After getting approval, they will start phase 1 human studies. Even places were allocated in the centers where these would be held, and determinations were made regarding the volunteers. We would like to start phase studies on at least one or two of these vaccines in January.
I AM PROUD WITH OUR TEACHERS
After these capabilities left our country in 1998, we did not concentrate on this area. How are approval processes managed and guidelines prepared? We have created a capacity that we can take it head to head with the world is currently in Turkey. We also learned about the vaccine trial and approval processes. Our Ministry of Health is working on vaccine alternatives from abroad. How to get vaccinated our most urgent person right now is making this work. In addition, our efforts to launch our own domestic and national vaccine are continuing at a great pace. Frankly, I am proud of our teachers at every meeting.
CRITICAL MEETING WITH BİONTECH
BioNTech's co-founder Prof. Dr. Uğur Şahin made a statement. 'Evolved past 15 years, technology investments in Turkey, we are seeing TUBITAK' he said. True, we have been meeting with Uğur Hoca since March. We are meeting here to do business together. TÜBİTAK President Prof. Dr. I instructed our teacher Hasan Mandal to go to Germany. Can we produce together? Turkey is a good point. We are determined to develop our own vaccine. With the epidemic, especially with the vaccination of people, you have difficulties in finding human candidates, especially in the phase 3 phase, but we continue this work very seriously. Because we see that this epidemic will continue for many years. When you look at the countries that announced their vaccination calendars today, we see that a small part of the world population will be vaccinated in 2021. Maybe we can cooperate with foreign countries, but we want to have our own vaccine. We recognize Turkey's hand will strengthen the capabilities we have gained a lot here.
WE WILL TALK ALTERNATIVES
Hasan Hodja met with Ugur Hoca many times. The idea of opening a research center together was born from these meetings. We now know that. There is a constraint in their production capacity. Together we can build a production plant in Turkey, he wanted the meeting to go personally. While zoom meetings are effective, face-to-face meeting is different. It will be gone soon. We will make production in Turkey we talked alternatives. There are no legal obstacles for Germany. I don't know if there are any restrictions on intellectual property. He is going to discuss them as well. Ugur Hoca, founded beautiful sentences about Turkey. He really wants to establish a joint R&D center here, especially to do cancer studies. We have already put this on a road. Hasan Hodja will discuss the issue of joint production.
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