Three biopharmaceutical companies developing Covid-19 vaccines or treatments received 70 percent of the government subsidies totaling more than 50 billion won ($42.2 million) in the first half of this year, according to their semiannual reports.

Biopharmaceutical companies developing Covid-19 vaccines and treatments received most of the government subsidy in the first half of 2021.
Biopharmaceutical companies developing Covid-19 vaccines and treatments received most of the government subsidy in the first half of 2021.

SK Bioscience received 16.5 billion won from the government, accounting for about half of the 33.3 billion won the company invested in research and development in the first half-year. The company is developing two Covid-19 vaccines -- GBP510 and NBP2001. GBP510 is undergoing global phase 3 clinical trials, and NBP2001 won is in phase 1 clinical trials.

Celltrion received more than 14.3 billion won in the first six months. The company spent a large share of the money on developing an antibody treatment for Covid-19.

Genexine received 5.9 billion won for five state-run projects. In 2020, Genexine built a personalized DNA vaccine production system and received support for developing phase 1/2a clinical trials and approval of phase 2b/3 clinical trials for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate GX-19.

GeneOne Life Science got 3.6 billion won based on the DNA vaccine being developed. In addition, the government agreed to support 7.3 billion won out of 9.8 billion won for running phase 1/2a clinical trial of the Covid-19 vaccine GLS-5310 in 2020.

The company began phase 2a clinical study of GLS-5310 in August. In addition, GeneOne Life Science was selected as a priority negotiator for the Covid-19 vaccine candidate development projects based on its nucleic acid vaccine platform. The task was designated as an urgent task by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

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