Jakarta, Aug. 4 -- Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) is accelerating the development of infectious disease drug candidates derived from the country's biodiversity to strengthen national pharmaceutical resilience.

The initiative is being advanced through the International Symposium on Drug Discovery and Development held in Jakarta on Tuesday, bringing together researchers from Indonesia, Japan, and Malaysia to strengthen the scientific collaboration from compound discovery to preclinical safety evaluation.

"Indonesia is a megabiodiversity country with enormous potential to discover new therapeutic compounds from its rich biological resources. However, translating that potential into viable drug candidates remains...