On July 23, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired an online meeting discussing vaccine production. Accordingly, Vietnam’s largest conglomerate Vingroup is reported to be negotiating the transfer of COVID-19 vaccine technology with Arcturus with expectations of beginning clinical trials in Vietnam from August.

This move is in line with global efforts to scale up access to life saving treatments. If successful, Vingroup will have a capacity of producing 100-200 million doses of vaccine annually.

Arcturus Therapeutics is a leading clinical-stage messenger RNA medicines company focused on the development of infectious disease vaccines and rare liver and respiratory diseases.

It has developed a vaccine called Arcturus COVID-19 using the same mRNA technology as the vaccines of Pfizer and Moderna.

In early June, Vingroup established Vinbiocare Biotechnology JSC, with a focus on manufacturing drugs, pharmaceutical chemicals, and medicinal herbs including vaccine production, scientific research, and technology development.

At the same time, Vietnamese company AIC Group and Vabiotech have also inked an agreement with Japanese pharmaceutical Shinogi for vaccine technology transfer and are preparing to launch the third phase of clinical trials. The Vietnamese side is expected to complete all procedures and officially launch the vaccine by June 2022.