Amid the prolonged pandemic... South Korea began its vaccination campaign in late February,
aiming to reach herd immunity by November. The country has been working on developing
vaccines through local pharmaceutical companies to fight against the virus.
For more on this, our Bae Eun-ji joins us in the studio.
Eun-ji, it's great to have you here today.
Good afternoon.
Around the world, there are currently 96 COVID-19 vaccine candidates undergoing clinical trials
and one-hundred-84 candidates in pre-trial development.
And South Korean firms are also in this race to develop vaccines.
So, how far have South Korean companies got in developing their own vaccines?
Well Devin, some domestically-developed vaccines could finish their clinical trials by the
end of this year, and begin distribution starting next year.
Currently five domestic companies have got the approval to conduct clinical trials for
their vaccine candidates in South Korea. Of them, two companies are in phase 2 of their
clinical trials. SK Bioscience has two vaccine candidates...
one of them has finished phase 1 and the other one is currently in both phase 1 and 2.
Another vaccine developer... EuBiologics is waiting for its phase 1 trial results... aiming
to begin phase 2 in June. And one other company is in phase 1 of its
clinical trials.
"We plan to begin phase 3 clinical trials in the second half of this year. If this happens,
we plan on getting the conditional approval by the end of this year... and distributing
the vaccines starting early next year."
SK Bioscience is another company that also aims to begin phase 3 clinical trials in the
second half of this year, and start vaccine distribution next year.
It's good to hear that these vaccines may be viable from next year.
There are different types of vaccines... and the methods that most people are familiar
with are probably the mRNA method used by Pfizer and the viral-vector method used by
AstraZeneca. So what type of vaccine is each company working
on?
None of the five local developers are working on mRNA vaccines like those by Pfizer and
Moderna. But, they are working on vaccines similar
to those by Novavax and AstraZeneca. Two companies... SK Bioscience and EuBiologics
are working on making 'protein subunit vaccines'... which is the traditional way of developing
vaccines. This is similar to the technology used by
Novavax. This type of vaccine spurs an immune response
in the recipient by injecting a spike protein from the SARS-COV-2 virus, which is the virus
that causes COVID-19. It also adds chemical agents called 'adjuvants'
to stimulate a stronger immune response. Another company called Cellid... is developing
'viral-vector vaccines'... like the ones developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
This technology uses a harmless virus as a delivery system to trigger the immune system
to create antibodies. The other two companies... Genexine and Geneone
Life Science... are working on DNA vaccines.
Why is the country working so hard to get hold of local vaccines... and will there still
be high demand when they are actually ready to distribute them?
An industry watcher that I talked with said they are important in order to quickly respond
to any other infectious diseases that might break out after this pandemic is over.
"Homegrown vaccines are needed to secure vaccine sovereignty. Developing vaccines and treatments
against the virus is a way to protect citizens in the post-COVID-19 era... and an essential
factor in doing what the nation needs to do."
The chief of KDCA, Jeong Eun-kyeong had also said that COVID-19 might not be a virus that
can be stopped by getting vaccinated just once or twice... like smallpox and polio...
but a virus that could break out every year. If this is the case, it will require an annual
vaccination program... leading to high demand. Also, vaccines are still needed in other countries.
"The U.S. and Europe may have plenty of vaccine supplies... but for places like Asia and Africa...
they still need to secure more vaccines. And with cases of variants of the virus, there
is going to be demand."
And South Korea is also manufacturing vaccines developed by other global pharmaceutical companies.
Tell us more about that.
SK Bioscience is currently producing AstraZeneca vaccines at its plant in Andong City.
And it also plans on manufacturing Novavax vaccines as early as June.
Novavax had signed a licensing agreement with the South Korean company in August last year
to produce 40-million doses of its vaccine. SK Bioscience plans to rollout 10-million
doses of the Novavax vaccine within the third quarter... and 20-million more in the fourth
quarter.
Thank you Eun-ji.