Can South Korea's 'K-Bio' speed up COVID-19 vaccine development?
- 4 years ago
한국 바이오 산업의 미래 PT 1
Global demand for South Korea's medical products exploded in the month of May,... amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Exports of bio-health products including COVID-19 test kits surged 59 per cent on year, and PPE saw a whopping 124-thousand percent increase.
Some say this marks the start of K-Bio beyond COVID-19,... with many now watching for developments toward a Korean-made vaccine and treatment.
Today, we have our tech correspondent Oh Soo-young to discuss the issue with us.
Sooyoung, the government finally gave us the answer that we were waiting to hear. An idea of when a vaccine will be out to end this pandemic. How does the timeline look and can we be optimistic?
Right, the government's task force on COVID-19 drugs told us Wednesday that three types of treatments for the coronavirus would be out by this year and a vaccine by 2021.
The government is planning to inject eighty-two million U.S. dollars of its supplementary budget into achieving its targets.
And it seems we do have reason to be optimistic.
The International Vaccine Institute's research center based here in Seoul said on Thursday that it will begin the first and second clinical trials of a vaccine candidate by the end of this month.
The institute has been working with Seoul National University Hospital,... and their clincial trial's will mark the country's first for the COVID-19. But, there's more to come
Right now, there are about 20 Korean bio firms working on treatments and vaccines. The largest companies include SK Bioscience and Genexine which are expected to enter clinical trials by next year.
As for developing treatments,... Celltrion said last week that its animal testing has seen progress in effectively reducing viral loads of the disease,... and it plans to start in-human clinical trials from late July. GC Pharma’s plasma treatment is also set to start clinical tests next month.
So from the way things are going at the moment, it looks like the development of these drugs is likely to be on schedule.
I mean, SK last month got 3.6 million dollars in R&D funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, so it seems a Korean-made vaccine is worth betting on.
Yes, you're right And there certainly is worldwide attention on Korea's bio technology if the country's test kits are anything to go by.
Korean firms have exported about 56 million test kits to 110 countries as of late May.
South Korea was able to ramp up its capacity to manufacture test kits very quickly due to the rapid government response and the agility of local firms.
In January, there were only four confirmed cases in the country but health officials quickly activated an emergency use approval system that was first adopted in 2015 during the MERS outbreak.
This allowed medical companies to develop the test kits and get approval by the first week of February and the rest is history.
So we can expect this kind of fast, and effective development for a vaccine as well?...
Global demand for South Korea's medical products exploded in the month of May,... amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Exports of bio-health products including COVID-19 test kits surged 59 per cent on year, and PPE saw a whopping 124-thousand percent increase.
Some say this marks the start of K-Bio beyond COVID-19,... with many now watching for developments toward a Korean-made vaccine and treatment.
Today, we have our tech correspondent Oh Soo-young to discuss the issue with us.
Sooyoung, the government finally gave us the answer that we were waiting to hear. An idea of when a vaccine will be out to end this pandemic. How does the timeline look and can we be optimistic?
Right, the government's task force on COVID-19 drugs told us Wednesday that three types of treatments for the coronavirus would be out by this year and a vaccine by 2021.
The government is planning to inject eighty-two million U.S. dollars of its supplementary budget into achieving its targets.
And it seems we do have reason to be optimistic.
The International Vaccine Institute's research center based here in Seoul said on Thursday that it will begin the first and second clinical trials of a vaccine candidate by the end of this month.
The institute has been working with Seoul National University Hospital,... and their clincial trial's will mark the country's first for the COVID-19. But, there's more to come
Right now, there are about 20 Korean bio firms working on treatments and vaccines. The largest companies include SK Bioscience and Genexine which are expected to enter clinical trials by next year.
As for developing treatments,... Celltrion said last week that its animal testing has seen progress in effectively reducing viral loads of the disease,... and it plans to start in-human clinical trials from late July. GC Pharma’s plasma treatment is also set to start clinical tests next month.
So from the way things are going at the moment, it looks like the development of these drugs is likely to be on schedule.
I mean, SK last month got 3.6 million dollars in R&D funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, so it seems a Korean-made vaccine is worth betting on.
Yes, you're right And there certainly is worldwide attention on Korea's bio technology if the country's test kits are anything to go by.
Korean firms have exported about 56 million test kits to 110 countries as of late May.
South Korea was able to ramp up its capacity to manufacture test kits very quickly due to the rapid government response and the agility of local firms.
In January, there were only four confirmed cases in the country but health officials quickly activated an emergency use approval system that was first adopted in 2015 during the MERS outbreak.
This allowed medical companies to develop the test kits and get approval by the first week of February and the rest is history.
So we can expect this kind of fast, and effective development for a vaccine as well?...