GC Pharma set to produce Sputnik V vaccine

A medical worker shows a vial of Sputnik V vaccine during COVID-19 vaccinations at a clinic near Moscow in this December 2020 file photo. / Reuters-Yonhap

Government considers introducing Sputnik V to Korea

By Park Jae-hyuk

GC Pharma is emerging as a potential contract manufacturing organization (CMO) of Russia's COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V, according to media reports and industry officials, Monday.

Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong also said that day that the government is considering introducing the Russian vaccine to cope with uncertainties over mutations and supply issues.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the country's sovereign wealth fund that invested in the Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology for the development of the vaccine, chose Hankook Korus Pharm, a subsidiary of biotech company GL Rapha, as a Korean manufacturing partner last November.

The small pharmaceutical firm has produced Sputnik V at its factory in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, to export the entire output to the Middle East. Its annual production capacity for the vaccine, named after the world's first satellite that the Soviet Union launched in 1957, is about 150 million doses.

Industry sources said the RDIF is looking for another manufacturer here because more countries want to import the Russian vaccine, after the Lancet, one of the world's oldest and most respected medical journals, confirmed the vaccine's efficacy at 91.6 percent.

GC Pharma has been mentioned as the strongest candidate, given the drug maker signed an agreement last October with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) on reserving its vaccine production capacity to produce CEPI-funded vaccines.

At the time of the agreement, CEPI said GC Pharma will produce at least one of the vaccine candidates in CEPI's portfolio, adding the capacity is estimated to exceed 500 million vaccine doses.

If the RDIF signs an agreement with GC Pharma, the Korean firm is expected to produce Sputnik V at its factory in Ochang, North Chungcheong Province.

GC Pharma has reiterated that it cannot confirm the report until the conclusion of a contract, as the company had also said when it was mentioned as a Korean CMO of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine last December.

However, the company reportedly told local securities analysts in a private meeting last month that it had received proposals from multiple COVID-19 vaccine developers and rearranged the production schedule at its Ochang factory.

"The shortage of vaccine production facilities seems inevitable due to the development of a variety of vaccines, so the contract manufacturing of GC Pharma's COVID-19 vaccine is considered a matter of the timing of the announcement," Hana Financial Investment analyst Sun Min-jung said.

The RDIF has yet to comment on whether it is in talks with GC Pharma or the Korean government, but its CEO Kirill Dmitriev said in a previous interview with The Korea Times that the sovereign wealth fund was in talks with two major Korean pharmaceutical companies.

"We aim to make it available for use in countries globally and to create strategic partnerships for vaccine production in all parts of the world, including South Korea," he said at that time.

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