- SK bioscience obtained exclusive rights to manufacture, marketing, and distribute the NVX-CoV2373 in South Korea.

- Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention(KDCA), made a purchase commitment for 40 million doses from SK bioscience to take initiative for national wide vaccination

SK bioscience announced on the 16th that company has made a licensing agreement with Novavax, a US-based biotechnology company for NVX-CoV2373, Novavax´ COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which is expected to be approved by European Union and United States soon, and a vaccine supply agreement with KDCA to independently manufacture and supply the vaccine for South Korean population.

Under the terms of the licensing agreement, SK bioscience will exclusively hold the rights of production, manufacture, marketing, and sale of NVX-CoV2373 in South Korea via technology transfer. Also, SK bioscience will be supplying 40 million doses of the manufactured vaccine, which accounts for 20 million population, for domestic vaccination according to the supply agreement with KDCA.

SK bioscience can immediately initiate manufacturing for the domestic vaccine supplies through the licensing agreement as the company is currently preparing the production of commercial batches for global supply. It has completed the technology transfer of drug substance process of NVX-CoV2373 after signing Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization(CDMO) agreement with Novavax in August last year.

Novavax´s COVID-19 vaccine is spotlighted by its effectiveness and convenience as it can easily be distributed to less developed countries. The vaccine was developed based on recombinant protein vaccine technology that has been proven to be safe and effective over extensive periods by conventional vaccine products such as influenza (flu), hepatitis B, and cervical cancer vaccine.

Unlike the mRNA vaccines, required to be stored in ultra-low temperature (- 20℃ to -70 ℃), the recombinant vaccine can be stored at refrigerated temperature (2℃ to 8 ℃), allowing distribution using the existing vaccine logistics network without thawing at the vaccination site.
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Also, Novavax´s recombinant COVID-19 vaccine is expected to have one to three years of shelf life, which is longer than other technology-based vaccines. The vaccine can be used more than a year after the manufacturing date.

In recent clinical trials, NVX-CoV2373 has shown strong efficacy and protection against the original strain and new variants of COVID-19 strains.

Novavax announced last month that NVX-CoV2373 is shown average vaccine efficacy of 89.3% against COVID-19 strains, including variants, in the phase 3 clinical study conducted in the UK with more than 15,000 adults aged 18 to 84. It showed 95.6 % of vaccine efficacy against the original COVID-19 strain. The result is higher than the mRNA vaccine´s efficacy, which has been considered the most effective against the original COVID-19 strain. NVX-CoV2373 showed 85.6% and 60% efficacy against Britain and South Africa´s variant strains, respectively.

Stanley C. Erck, President and CEO of Novavax said “We are pleased that SK Bioscience shares our sense of urgency to deliver a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine to protect the global population, including the people of South Korea. We are proud to expand our partnership, which has already made great progress in scaling up high quality, commercial-scale production to increase the global supply of NVX-CoV2373."

Jaeyong Ahn, CEO of SK bioscience said, “This is a significant step forward for SK bioscience as it secures the vaccine technology to take the initiative to overcome the pandemic at a national level, not merely procuring vaccine product.SK bioscience will work closely with the government to realize the corporate social value by making available COVID-19 vaccine for the people of South Korea".