-The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided 3.6 million USD to accelerate SK bioscience’s development of COVID-19 vaccine candidates which will enter a Phase 1 clinical trial soon
- With three diverse platforms, SK bioscience will conduct preclinical studies prior to entering human trials in collaboration with the global immunogen design institute

SK bioscience announced on the 18th that the company has received the funding of 3.6 million USD from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support its efforts for discovering the most promising candidate(s) with various platforms against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Later, SK bioscience will cooperate with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) on the use of the funds.

Despite an urgent need for an effective and affordable vaccine to counter the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, unfortunately, less is known about the most efficient antigen needed to make a fully effective and safe vaccine against the newly identified virus, SARS-CoV-2.

Being aware of the threat of the virus, SK bioscience will endeavor to develop simultaneously several vaccine candidates using three different expression platforms to derive the best antigen candidates in collaboration with one of the globally esteemed immunogen design institutes.

In parallel with on-going development of SK bioscience’s own recombinant COVID-19 vaccine candidates, SK bioscience will use the funding from the award to further develop more potentially higher immunogenic antigen constructs.

SK bioscience’s core capabilities in the platform technologies and corresponding commercial GMP capabilities for these expression systems will enable initiating the First in Human (FIH) study immediately after the toxicology study in animals is completed. SK bioscience has successfully established such technologies through development of its proprietary vaccines such as cell culture-based influenza vaccines, a Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine as well as a non-replicating rotavirus vaccine (NRRV).

Jaeyong Ahn, CEO of SK bioscience said, "This award is another achievement of our dedication to the public health and its competent expertise that has been shown previously during the course of developing Vi-DT typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV) and NRRV vaccine supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We are highly inspired by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s proactive leadership in the effort with multiple entities in an extraordinarily quick and efficient manner to secure highly effective and safe vaccines as one of the most needed responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.”