The government said that it is preparing various support measures so that local companies developing Covid-19 vaccines can enter phase 3 clinical trial in the second half of this year.
Currently, five Korean companies have completed phase 1 clinical trials. SK Bioscience and Eubiologics are developing a synthetic antigen vaccine, Genexine and GeneOne Life Science are working on a DNA vaccine, and Cellid is wrestling with a virus vector vaccine.
All of them plan to enter phase 3 clinical trials from the second half of this year.
The government will provide support services, such as one-on-one customized counseling and preliminary reviews to these companies. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety will start operating its central Institutional Review Board (IRB) to save pharmaceutical companies’ troubles in receiving IRB approval from different medical institutions.
The government will also support the pre-recruitment of clinical participants through the Korea National Enterprise or Clinical Trials (KONECT). When the phase 3 clinical trial begins in earnest, KONECT will help link companies with participants.
It also plans to spend 68.7 billion won ($60.9 million) this year on supporting companies' clinical costs and secure an additional budget if necessary.
If companies obtain the interim results of phase 2 clinical trial and conduct a successful phase 3 clinical trial, the government will purchase these vaccines in advance, considering the immunogenicity, safety, possibility of success, production capacity, and ease of injection.
The government will also support mRNA vaccine development, now in an early stage in Korea.
According to a government survey on local firms, local pharmaceutical companies believe that they have a three-year gap in mRNA technology compared with overseas rivals.
To close this technology gap, the government plans to support mRNA vaccine development companies through the help of relevant ministries.
"If a domestic vaccine is developed, it will contribute to a stable supply of vaccines in Korea," Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Kang Do-tae said. "We will also have to prepare for the post-Corona era by providing intensive support at the government level to secure mRNA vaccine technology."
The government has vaccinated 15,199,919 people – 10,387,462 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 3,678,931 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,125,920 with Janssen's vaccine, and 7,606 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 31,320 from the previous day.
The figure accounts for 29.6 percent of the country's population.
Although the country is set to implement eased social distancing rules starting next month, the daily Covid-19 tally stayed over 600 for the third consecutive day due to cluster infections and variant cases.
The KDCA confirmed 634 new virus cases, including 602 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 153,789.
One more person died of Covid-19, raising the death toll to 2,009 with a fatality rate of 1.31 percent. A total of 145,389 people have returned to their daily life after full recovery, up 601 from the previous day. The country has carried out 10,466,545 tests since Jan. 3 last year.
The country is bracing for a potential uptick in variant infections, especially the more transmissible Delta variant first detected in India.
Korea has yet to report a large number of Delta variant cases. Still, other countries, such as Britain and the United States, whose vaccination rates top 50 percent, have been struggling with rising cases of the variants known to be more contagious than the original ones.
Health authorities said a homegrown antibody treatment was quite low defense capability against the Delta variant.
The woes over variant cases also came as Korea is set to ease its social distancing scheme on July 1 amid its vaccination drive, allowing businesses to stay open longer and permit gatherings of more people.