SK Bioscience has recently announced that South Korea’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine ‘SKYCovione’ adjuvanted with GlaxoSmithKline’s pandemic adjuvant has been authorized by the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (KMFDS). This will not only strengthen the country’s overall position in the global vaccine industry but also reduce its reliance on foreign vaccines, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
According to GlobalData’s ‘Pharmaceutical Intelligence Center’, China, India and Indonesia are the other countries in Asia where homegrown vaccines are available. However, China was the first country in Asia to develop a homegrown vaccine.
South Korea is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases from 8,540 on 01 July to over 65,600 on 24 July, based on the seven-day average.
Prashant Khadayate, Pharma Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “South Korea is a potential supplier of COVID-19 vaccines from an export perspective. The approval of a homegrown vaccine is a sigh of relief for the country at a time when COVID-19 cases are on the rise.”
SK Bioscience submitted a rolling review document in the UK for the approval of its COVID-19 vaccine in March 2022. During the same month, the biopharmaceutical company received a supply order of 10 million doses of SKYCovione from Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KDCA).
Earlier, South Korean companies had established two consortiums to focus on homegrown mRNA vaccine development. In September 2021, mRNA Bio Venture Consortium was launched with Quratis, EyeGene, and Gene One BioScience. Another consortium K-mRNA was launched in June 2021 by Hanmi Pharmaceutical, ST Pharm, and Green Cross.
Khadayate concludes: “A homegrown vaccine will undoubtedly help in controlling the COVID-19 cases. However, SKYCovione’s overall market potential will increase based on the approval as a booster dose, both as a homologous and heterologous booster dose, along with the expansion in the below 18 years age group. Moreover, SK Bioscience should focus on getting regulatory approvals in countries with low vaccination rates for growth opportunities.
“Asian homegrown vaccines are not yet approved in developed nations. However, with a rolling submission in the UK, SKYCovione has a chance to become the first homegrown vaccine from Asia to get approval in a major market like the UK.”
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