SK Bioscience to sell Novavax COVID-19 vaccine in Thailand, Vietnam

SK Bioscience Co., a biopharmaceutical unit of South Korea’s SK Group, said on Friday it has acquired non-exclusive rights to sell US-based Novavax Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine to the governments of Thailand and Vietnam.

The deal is part of an agreement between SK Bioscience and Novavax to extend by one year a deal the two companies signed in 2020 to use the Korean firm’s facilities to manufacture a component of the US biotechnology company’s coronavirus vaccine, NVX-CoV2373.

Under the latest deal, SK Bioscience said it will reserve significant additional manufacturing capacity to produce an antigen, a key component of NVX-CoV2373, through 2022, with the possibility to extend the arrangement.

The contract extension signed on Friday builds on a previously announced advance purchase agreement (APA) between SK Bioscience and the Korean government to supply 40 million doses of the vaccine for use in Korea.

SK will also receive a consignment fee for the production of undiluted solution or drug substance (DS) of the vaccine, as well as a commission from the sale of the Novavax vaccine manufactured at SK’s Andong plant in Korea.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

"SK Bioscience shares Novavax's sense of urgency to deliver a safe and effective protein-based COVID-19 vaccine to help protect not only South Koreans but also the global population," said SK Bioscience Chief Executive Ahn Jae-yong.

In August of last year, SK Bioscience inked a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) deal to produce the antigen component of Novavax’s NVX-CoV2373.

"This strategic partnership helps to further expand our global network for manufacture and commercialization of high-quality product and will be an important part of our expected 2 billion annual doses in total global manufacturing capacity in 2022,” said Novavax Chief Executive Stanley C. Erck.

NVX-CoV2373 is a recombinant protein-based vaccine engineered from the genetic sequence of the first strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

SK’S OWN COVID VACCINE UNDER DEVELOPMENT

SK Bioscience is also developing its own recombinant coronavirus vaccine.

The company said this August it received approval from Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for the phase 3 clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate GBP510, which it aims to commercialize by the first half of 2022.

It has jointly developed GBP510 with the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington under a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Under the extended agreement between SK and Novavax, the Korean company’s rights to sell the Novavax vaccine will be valid until 2041 in Korea and 2026 in Thailand and Vietnam.

If SK Bioscience starts to sell its own COVID-19 vaccine in the first half of next year, its rights to sell the Novavax vaccine in Korea will be shortened to February 2024. In Thailand and Vietnam, its sales rights will last for a year after the commercial release of GBP510.

Write to Jae-young Han at jyhan@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.