South Korea has reached a deal to buy 10 million doses of the country’s first experimental coronavirus vaccine, developed by SK Bioscience, authorities said recently.
The South Korean company has since August conducted phase-III trials of its vaccine candidate, codenamed “GBP510,” jointly developed with the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design and aided by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
“They aim to secure formal approval in the first half of this year, and public distribution is expected to begin in the latter half,” Jeong Eun-kyeong, Director, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), told a briefing.
SK Bioscience said in a statement the deal is worth 200 billion won ($164.6 million) and that it would also supply its vaccine to the global vaccine sharing facility COVAX once authorised.
The drugmaker also produces COVID-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Novavax Inc.
Edits by EP News Bureau