Exclusive South Korea in talks with mRNA vaccine makers to offset 1 billion doses – government official

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Seniors in South Korea receive their first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine at the vaccination center in Seoul, South Korea, April 1, 2021. Chung Sung-Jun / Pool via REUTERS

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea is in talks with RNA vaccine makers including Pfizer (PFE.N) and Moderna (MRNA.O) to produce COVID-19 shots in the country and is ready to offer the ability to compensate. to 1 billion doses immediately, a senior government official said.

The plan, if approved, would help ease limited global supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly in Asia that lags behind North America and Europe in rolling out vaccines, and puts South Korea a step closer to its ambition of becoming a major vaccine manufacturing hub.

South Korea already has deals to locally produce three coronavirus vaccines developed by AstraZeneca (AZN.L)/Oxford University, Novavax (NVAX.O), and Russia. It also has a vaccine packaging deal with Moderna.

“We have frequent talks with major pharmaceutical companies to produce RNA vaccines,” Lee Kang-ho, director general of the South Korean Health Ministry’s Global Vaccine Center Committee, told Reuters in an interview.

“There are only a few developers of mRNA vaccines – Pfizer, Moderna, CureVac, BioNTech. There is thus a limit to how much they can produce to meet global demand… South Korea is keen to help by offering its facilities and skilled human resources,” Lee said.

It is not immediately clear how far these talks will progress and if and when a deal will be agreed.

BioNTech (22UAy.DE) declined to comment, and Moderna and CureVac (5CV.DE) did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

A Pfizer spokesperson said the company is making efforts to boost its COVID-19 vaccine supply chain, but added, “We don’t have anything specific to announce at this time.”

Li declined to name local vaccine manufacturers with the capacity to immediately produce mRNA vaccines, but a government source said they included Hanmi Pharmaceuticals Co Ltd (128940.KS) and Koratis Co Ltd.

Hanmi confirmed that it has a large capacity reserved for the Sanofi (SASY.PA) diabetes drug and can be used to produce the COVID-19 vaccine as the Sanofi project is on hold.

Karatis, which makes a tuberculosis vaccine, said its new plant built last year can now be used to produce an mRNA vaccine.

(Reporting by Sangmi Cha in Seoul); Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Michael Ehrmann in New York and Ludwig Berger in Frankfurt. Edited by Myung Kim and Raju Gopalakrishnan

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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