Vingroup hopes to produce its first batches of vaccine by early 2022, with a capacity of 200 million doses per year.
Under the agreement, Arcturus Therapeutics will grant permission to Vingroup’s affiliate VinBioCare to produce a COVID-19 vaccine named VBC-COV19-154, which is effective against new variants of the coronavirus such as Delta and Alpha. The Vietnamese company is also approved to manufacture other COVID-19 vaccine types.
The transfer is slated to begin this month. VinBioCare’s plant will be located at the Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park in Hanoi.
Vingroup has also successfully negotiated a special order of 500,000 vials of Remdesivir, the drug licensed for COVID-19 treatment by the FDA. The vials will be donated to the Ministry of Health this month, according to Vingroup. Because it can speed the recovery of patients with severe infections, Remdesivir is used by 50 countries including the US, Australia, Japan, Singapore, India, and the EU.