▲ On the 2nd, a discussion meeting held in the 1st video conference room of the National Assembly House of Representatives is being broadcasted online, “Conversation with the Future, Road to a Corona Clean Country: Domestic Vaccine Roadmap, Corona 19 Vaccine Sovereignty”.
A domestic company that develops a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) vaccine has announced that it will enter phase 3 clinical trials within this year.
SK Bioscience’s Strategic Planning Dept., Sang-mok Lee, said at the discussion on’Communication with the Future, Road to a Corona Clean Country: Domestic Vaccine Roadmap, Corona 19 Vaccine Sovereignty’ held at the National Assembly Assembly Hall on the 2nd. We will check it in the third quarter and proceed with a large-scale phase 3 clinical trial.”
SK Bioscience is conducting phase 1 clinical trials of independently developed vaccine candidates and phase 1 and 2 clinical trials for candidates developed with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Vaccines developed with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be supplied through COVAX upon success.
At the debate on this day, five companies from SK Biosciences, Celid, Genexin, Ubiologics, and Jinwon Life Sciences who are developing the Corona 19 vaccine, and Mok Hyeon-sang, head of the new drug development project, gathered together for each company. We announced countermeasures against the virus, and shared opinions on the difficulties we faced in the development process.
Celid is conducting clinical phases 1 and 2 of the Corona 19 vaccine developed through a platform using adenovirus. Kang Chang-yul, CEO of Celid, expressed expectation that “the short-term preventive effect of antibodies and the long-term preventive effect of T cells can be seen at the same time.”
Genexine President Woojung-won, who emphasized the safety of its products and the ability to induce immune responses, said, “We plan to establish overseas clinical cooperation based on the results of Phase 1 and 2.” Genexine was the first Korean company to obtain clinical approval for the Corona 19 vaccine. , In December last year, a candidate substance was changed and clinical trials are in progress.
Baek Young-ok, CEO of UBiologics, said that the vaccine under development has the advantage of inducing high neutralizing antibodies. “We are currently preparing for phase 1 clinical trials, and our goal is to enter phase 3 clinical trials in the second half of this year.”
Jeong Moon-seop, head of the Jinwon Life Science Research Institute, emphasized that the vaccine under development did not contain any side effects or allergens, and said, “We apply for emergency use approval in April next year, and we aim to ship the vaccine in May.” .
The government emphasized that all five companies are receiving R&D funding from the Corona 19 project group, and responded to the development difficulties raised by the five developers.
“We are currently supporting less than 10 billion won a year for the development of a domestic vaccine,” said Mook. He also mentioned the basic principle of intensive support to vaccine candidates with potential for success in the future.
Democratic Party lawmaker Shin Hyun-young, who hosted this discussion, stressed, “It is very important to share strategies to increase the effectiveness of the vaccine under development due to variables such as mutant viruses.”
Lee Gwang-jae, a member of the Democratic Party, who co-hosted the debate, said, “Since it costs up to 500 billion won in phase 3 clinical trials, it is suggested that in the long run, Korea and Singapore need to create funds to support clinical trials internationally and conduct large-scale clinical trials.