12th COVID-19 Vaccine Authorized

SK bioscience today announced the company has received the WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) of its COVID-19 vaccine, SKYCovione™ (SKYCovion™, GBP510).

This COVID-19 vaccine was developed with the Institute for Protein Design (IPD) at the University of Washington SCHOOL OF MEDICINE and uses GSK's pandemic adjuvant.

SKYCovione is also the world's first medicine developed using computational protein design, an approach that uses Rosetta software to engineer protein structures with enough precision to place individual atoms exactly where desired.

Jaeyong Ahn, CEO of SK bioscience, commented in a press release on June 19, 2023, "Based on the immunogenicity and safety profile, SKYCovione has become the first Korean vaccine to be granted to the WHO EUL."

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

The development of SKYCovione has been supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations with support from the European Horizon 2020 Programme.

SKYCovione (known as SKYCovion in the UK) was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for adults in May 2023.

SKYCovione is a self-assembled nanoparticle vaccine targeting the receptor binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein for SARS-CoV-2. 

The vaccine can be stored between 2-8 °C, making it suitable for use in countries where ultra-low cold chain storage facilities are unavailable. The ease of distribution helps to achieve greater access to vaccines in low-income countries.

Other COVID-19 vaccine news is posted by Precision Vaccinations.