Korea promotes vaccine development, biomanufacturing training for LMICs

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) & the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), Republic of Korea, have agreed to strengthen cooperation to promote the development & delivery of vaccines & biomanufacturing workforce training for low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) to help advance global health. IVI and MOHW exchanged a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which replaces their 2017 MoU to broaden areas of cooperation, at a signing ceremony at IVI headquarters in Seoul recently. Under the MoU, the two sides agreed to cooperate in all stages of vaccine development, ranging from discovery of vaccine candidates, pre-clinical testing & vaccine clinical trials (including overseas clinical trials). They also agreed to jointly support development, manufacturing & delivery of these vaccines to countries in need; facilitate joint research in vaccines & biopharmaceuticals between businesses, universities, & laboratories in Korea; & provide training & education of global vaccine (and bio) workforce to enhance LMICs’ vaccine production capacity.