[Alpha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Paul Lee] SK Bioscience is planning to develop a second-generation Ebola vaccine.

SK Bioscience announced on the 23rd that it signed a business agreement with the Hilleman Institute (Hilleman Laboratories), an international non-profit research institute, for the joint development of the second-generation Zaire Ebola virus (Zaire Ebola Virus) vaccine.

Hilleman Institute was established in 2009 by a joint venture between MSD, a global pharmaceutical company, and Wellcome Trust, the world's largest medical research support foundation. Currently, the Hilleman Institute is researching not only the development of vaccines and medicines, but also the efficient delivery of vaccines and medicines to the environment of developing countries.

Current commercially available Ebola vaccines include MSD's "ERVEBO" and Johnson & Johnson's "ZABDENO." After the Ebola virus disease, which had been limited to Africa, spread around the world beyond West Africa in 2014, pharmaceutical companies around the world jumped into the development of the next-generation Ebola vaccine to ensure sufficient supply of the vaccine at the right time. The Hilleman Institute, along with MSD, also started to improve process efficiency and heat stability to optimize product yield and storage conditions, and succeeded in finding candidate materials for the second-generation Ebola vaccine.

Through this contract, SK Bioscience will cooperate with each other for the development of second-generation Ervebo, which has improved in terms of vaccine production process, production efficiency and heat stability. The two companies plan to supply vaccines to low- and medium-income countries by securing price competitiveness after the development of the vaccine.

 

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