SK Bioscience signs vaccine deal with GlaxoSmithKline

Five GSK vaccines that SK Bioscience will distribute in Korea. [SK BIOSCIENCE]

SK Bioscience has received a contract to locally distribute five vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the Korean company said Wednesday.

The five vaccines are Boostrix, Menveo, Havrix 1449, Priorix and Cervarix which each offer prevention for different diseases from hepatitis A to cervical cancer. According to SK, the markets targeted by the five vaccines totaled 128 billion won ($118 million) in Korea last year.

The vaccines were previously sold in Korea through other Korean pharmaceutical companies contracted with GSK. SK Bioscience did not disclose when its distribution contract is effective until.

For four of GSK’s vaccines, SK Bioscience will take charge of targeting the market for adults, while the British firm will focus its domestic sales capacity on strengthening sales of child vaccines. Cervarix is the only product that SK will have rights to tackle in both the adult and children markets.

“The latest partnership will result in a win-win situation for both companies in the vaccine market and for us, is a new growth engine,” said Choi Ahn-joon, a marketing executive at SK Biosicence.

“We will further expand our portfolio of self-developed and distributed vaccines to expand the market.”

At the vaccine subsidiary of SK Chemicals, sales of self-developed vaccines are around 70 to 80 percent of total sales.

BY SONG KYOUNG-SON [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]