SK Bioscience said that GBP510 has produced successful results in phase 3 clinical trials involving 4,037 adults aged 18 or older in South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, New Zealand, Ukraine, and the Philippines, such as showing excellent immune responses compared to a COVID-19 vaccine of AstraZeneca PLC, a Swedish-British pharmaceutical company.
SK Bioscience would apply for GBP510's product permission to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety as soon as it secures safety data. "Through the successful development of GBP510, we will make a new turning point in global quarantine. Furthermore, we will do our mission to establish South Korea's vaccine sovereignty," SK Bioscience CEO Ahn Jae-yong said on April 25.
GBP510 is a recombinant vaccine that injects surface antigen protein of the coronavirus made using genetic recombination technology to induce an immune response. SK Bioscience has used an adjuvant from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British multinational pharmaceutical company. An adjuvant is a drug or other substance, or a combination of substances, that is used to increase the efficacy or potency of certain drugs.
The development of GBP510 has been funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an international foundation that finances vaccine research projects. CEPI has launched a Wave 2 project to discover new vaccines with money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.