SK bioscience's Covid-19 vaccine added to WHO EUL

SKYCovione, Korea’s first homegrown Covid-19 vaccine developed by SK bioscience [SK BIOSCIENCE]

SK bioscience’s SKYCovione, Korea’s first domestically developed Covid-19 vaccine, was listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO Emergence Use Listing (EUL) is "a risk-based procedure for assessing and listing unlicensed vaccines, therapeutics and in vitro diagnostics with the ultimate aim of expediting the availability of those products to people affected by a public health emergency," according to WHO.

SK bioscience said the vaccines will be especially helpful for people in developing countries as they can be stored in normal refrigerators at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius unlike Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which use mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) technology and require extremely low temperatures to remain effective.

SKYCovione received approval from a British regulator in May, becoming the first homegrown vaccine to gain sales approval in a foreign country.

“Based on the immunogenicity and safety profile, SKYCovione has become the first Korean vaccine to be put on the WHO EUL," said Ahn Jae-yong, SK bioscience CEO.

"We will be committed to developing more vaccines to not just strengthen Korea's vaccine sovereignty, but also to enable equitable access of the vaccine.”

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]