'SK Bioscience's vaccine effective against Omicron variant'

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Business

Sat, September 23, 2023 | 07:56

Bio

'SK Bioscience's vaccine effective against Omicron variant'

Posted : 2022-07-13 16:05

Updated : 2022-07-14 14:26

An SK Bioscience researcher conducts a vaccine test in this photo provided by the company, Wednesday. Courtesy of SK Bioscience

By Baek Byung-yeul

SK Bioscience's SKYCovione coronavirus vaccine was proven to be effective against the Omicron variant. The company said Wednesday that it confirmed the effective immune response when people received a booster shot of the vaccine.

SKYCovione, also known as GBP510, is Korea's first COVID-19 vaccine. SK Bioscience obtained approval for the use of the recombinant protein-based vaccine from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on June 29.

The company conducted Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials on 81 healthy adults who received a booster shot of SKYCovione seven months after they received the second dose of the vaccine. The result showed that the neutralizing antibody titers against the Omicron variant BA.1 were 25 times higher than the titers right after the second dose, and 72 times higher than the titers seven months after the second dose.

The test result was revealed as the number of new confirmed COVID-19 infections is increasing again in Korea. As of Wednesday, the country reported 40,266 new COVID-19 cases. It is the first time in 63 days that the number of new confirmed cases exceeded the 40,000 mark. The previous peak was May 11 when there were 43,980 new cases.

Due to the increasing number of new cases, the government decided to continue requiring confirmed COVID-19 patients to self-quarantine for seven days. Health officials had been considering shortening or lifting the quarantine. In addition, the recipients of a fourth booster shot will be expanded from people aged 60 or older to people aged 50 or older or those with underlying diseases aged 18 or older.

"According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and experts, up to 200,000 confirmed cases could occur a day from mid-August to the end of September," Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said during a COVID-19 response meeting at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.

Stating that "the fourth vaccination can prevent progress toward severe COVID-19 symptoms," the prime minister stressed "the government strongly recommends vaccination among the recommended groups."

SK Bioscience believes its vaccine, which has been proven to be effective against Omicron, will help reduce the renewed proliferation of COVID-19 here. The results of the global Phase 3 clinical trial of SKYCovione on 4,037 adults showed that the proportion of participants who seroconverted or saw more than a fourfold increase in neutralizing antibody titers, was 98.06 percent, the company said.

"As the world slowly returns to daily life after the long COVID-19 pandemic, new variants are constantly threatening humanity," Ahn Jae-young, the CEO of the company, said.

"We will make utmost efforts to prepare for the endemic by accelerating the development of polyvalent vaccines and universal vaccines based on various platforms in addition to conducting various clinical trials of SKYCovione," he added.

baekby@koreatimes.co.kr