S. Korea emerges as global vaccine hub

May 24, 2021, 08:52 am

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President Moon Jae-in and US President Joe Biden hold a joint press conference at the White House in Washington on Friday. / Source: Yonhap

AsiaToday reporter Choi Won-young

South Korea is emerging as a global vaccine hub as Samsung and SK decided to manufacture and jointly develop COVID-19 vaccines of Moderna and Novavax. Samsung agreed to manufacture hundreds of millions of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine starting in the third quarter. SK decided to jointly develop and produce COVID-19 vaccines with Novavax.

With its best pharmaceutical production capacity, South Korea is already producing AstraZeneca, Novavax and Sputnik V vaccines. The cooperation with Moderna is expected to ease global supply shortages and help the world overcome the pandemic.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy signed a South Korea-U.S. vaccine partnership held in Washington D.C. on Sunday, with President Moon Jae-in in attendance. Under the agreement, Samsung Biologics and Moderna will start producing hundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine and supply it to the world. They are planning to start mass production in the third quarter after completing technology transfer and trial production.

Moderna is planning investments in the mRNA vaccine production facility and hiring manpower in South Korea. The country’s National Institute of Health also agreed to cooperate on research into infectious diseases. The deal is expected to contribute to the stable and speedy supply of vaccine in South Korea.

SK Bioscience and the health ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Novavax on the development and production of vaccines. Both the United States and South Korea decided to quickly form an expert group for the global vaccine partnership composed of public officials, scientists and experts for practical discussions.

#South Korea #SK Bioscience #Samsung Biologics #Moderna #vaccine