Bill Gates seeks to cooperate closely with South Korea, the presidential office in Seoul said.
SK Bioscience, the South Korean pharmaceutical company backed by Bill Gates, may be able to produce 200 million coronavirus vaccine kits by next June, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp. said in a letter to the South President. Korean Moon Jae-in.
Gates is seeking to cooperate closely with South Korea, the Seoul presidential office said on Sunday, citing the July 20 letter, without specifying what else he said.
The American billionaire’s foundation gave $ 3.6 million in May to SK Bioscience to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines. In addition to working on its own candidate vaccines, the company is also one of the contractors that AstraZeneca Plc hires to manufacture its vaccine. The company declined to comment on Monday.
Developed with the University of Oxford, Astrazeneca’s vaccine is in the third and final stage of human testing and is one of the pioneers in the global vaccination race.
Shares of SK Chemicals, which owns a 98% stake in SK Bioscience, jumped 25% on Monday on news of the company’s vaccine manufacturing capacity.
Hundreds of vaccines are being developed around the world to immunize against Covid-19 as it becomes increasingly clear that countries cannot safely reopen their economies and return to normal life without one. A handful of vaccines, including China’s Astrazeneca-Oxford 1 and 2, are in the final stages of testing, giving hope that a vaccine may be available before the end of the year.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
