Bangkok--25 Jan--Image Impact
Gears to reduce vaccine import and penetrate ASEAN countries
In celebrating its 10th Anniversary, BioNet-Asia Co., Ltd., the only privately-owned vaccine research and development company in Thailand, incorporation with the National Vaccine Institute organized a symposium today on ‘Building Vaccine Development Capacity in Thailand’ to encourage more public-private partnerships (PPP) to accelerate local vaccine development and production to reduce vaccine import and consumer costs and to meet domestic and ASEAN demand when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) materializes.
“Our company has had many years of experience in the vaccine business, and our mission is to produce affordable vaccines, and make them available not only locally, but also to other ASEAN countries. We would, therefore, like to stimulate all concerned to seek ways on how best to accelerate local vaccine development and production to bridge the huge vaccine gap between industrialized and developing worlds”, commented Mr. Vitoon Vonghangool, Managing Director of BioNet-Asia Co., Ltd.
In 2009, BioNet-Asia invested over Baht 300 million in opening the first R&D Centre and vaccine pilot plant dedicated to the development of bacterial vaccines in Thailand as the company’s first phase in realizing local vaccine production. The Centre’s facilities, designed and built in compliance with International and WHO’s Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards, occupies an area of 2,000 square meters on 17 rai of land located in the Hi-Tech Industrial Estate of Ayudhaya.
Since then, BioNet-Asia, supported by the Board of Investment, started to develop a new Acellular Pertussis vaccine using the recombinant pertussis strain constructed and cultivated from its research collaboration with Mahidol University. “The advantage of the recombinant pertussis strain is that it produces very high yields of inactivated pertussis toxins, which will make the recombinant Acellular Pertussis vaccine affordable to developing countries. This will, indeed, be the first time that developing countries will have access to an innovative and affordable vaccine before the industrialized world,” revealed Mr. Vitoon.
This year, the company plans to produce the Acellular Pertussis vaccine, which has been successfully used to prevent whooping cough in Western Europe, North America, Japan and Korea, for pre-clinic trials. In addition, BioNet-Asia will also extend its research partnership with Mahidol University to produce Protein Carrier as well as open additional QC and Viral labs in April in order to increase its research and development efficiency and capabilities.
“Although Thailand has been producing vaccines for 80 years, the production machinery and processes adopted are outdated, and there is also a need to invest and develop human resources and management in order to expand capacity and meet international standards. Now, is an opportune time to do this especially since the Thai Baht is becoming stronger and our population figure of 67 million is now too large to be purchasing vaccines from overseas. Fortunately, the government is now taking concrete steps to revitalize and expand vaccine production, and on December 17th last year, the National Vaccine Institute was officially opened to support the development of common vaccines such as for dengue fever, whooping cough, Hepatitis B and tuberculosis,” noted Prof. Emer. Dr. Pornchai Matangkasombut, Executive Board Chairman of the Thailand Center of Excellence for Life Sciences. “Also, with the upcoming formation of the AEC, investors will gain a good return on their investment through penetrating the ASEAN market”, he added.
Dr. Ratchanee Wattanawisitporn, the Board of Investment’s Director of Investment Promotion Group 6, said that BOI was trying to encourage more companies to invest in vaccine development involving basic research, applied research and experimental development. “As it is a highly technical and specialized industry, BOI is ready to support interested investors by providing attractive incentives such as exemption of import duties on machinery, waiving of corporate tax for 8 years and deduction of transport and utility costs to name but a few”, she said.
Presently, Thailand imports around 90% or Baht 4 billion Baht worth of vaccines per year.
For further information, please contact:
BioNet-Asia Co., Ltd. Tel: +66 (0) 2361 8110
E-mail:
[email protected]
or
Image Impact Ltd. Tel: +66 (0) 2357 1180 — 2
Chutinun Guna-Tilaka Ext. 108
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