SK Bioscience is likely to name its experimental Covid-19 vaccine (GBP510) “SKY Covione,” a patent information service site showed.
The product's name draws particular attention because it will become if authorized by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the nation’s 35th novel drug and the first homegrown Covid-19 vaccine.
According to the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service, SK Bioscience applied for the Korean brand name SKY Covione in January and the English brand name in February.
Since 2020, SK Bioscience has applied for many Korean and English trade names, including SKY Covione, SKYCOVID19, and SKYshield.
The designated products of the trademarks are a vaccine, a vaccine for humans, a drug to treat viral diseases, and a vaccine to prevent pneumonia infection.
SKY Covione came out most recently, and its design is close to a product label rather than a trademark.
On Friday, SK Bioscience applied for a preliminary review of GBP510’s quality, which gives not much time to commercialize the product if it wins the permit.
Industry watchers speculated that SK Bioscience could pick SKY Covione as the brand name of the first Korean Covid-19 vaccine.
However, SK Bioscience cautioned against making a premature prediction.
“We have yet to finalize the brand name. Applying for the brand name of SKY Covione was one of many trade name options, and we’re still reviewing it,” an official at SK Bioscience said.
In September last year, SK Bioscience applied for SKYshield, the project name of “glocalization,” a simultaneous globalization and localization strategy.
The designated product of the brand name includes drug manufacturing plant design and consulting, drug manufacturing machine and equipment design and consulting, and consulting for drug tests and research.
SK Bioscience said its SKYshield glocalization project aims to relocate its capacity for vaccine development and production to each government and partner company overseas to build production infrastructure suited for each region.
The company is discussing the project with various countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and plans to expand the number of target countries consecutively.