À̹ÌÁö È®´ë [Photo by Yonhap]
Bill Gates sent a letter of thanks to South Korea¡¯s LG Chem Ltd., congratulating the company on its successful development of a polio vaccine whose development was partly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
LG Chem has received a grant totaling $57.6 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 2017 for its Sabin Inactivated Polio Virus (IPV) candidate, Eupolio.
Shin Hak-cheol, vice chairman of LG Chem, shared the letter in the company¡¯s latest internal newsletter.
¡°We deeply appreciate our commitment to our common goal of solving polio disease and our efforts to provide a polio vaccine to people in need around the world,¡± Gates wrote. ¡°It will play a key role in eradicating polio infection as an important technology that can expand supply to 185 million doses.¡±
À̹ÌÁö È®´ë [Photo by LG Chem Ltd.]
Eufolio is LG Chem¡¯s next-generation inactivated vaccine that has been chemically processed to eliminate the pathogenicity of the virus using an attenuated virus, or a virus with weakened toxicity. It is said to be safer than existing activated vaccines.
¡°The Eufolio, which has been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a very important milestone not only in solving global children¡¯s public health issues, but also in the partnership between LG Chem and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We look forward to continuing the same development as this polio vaccine,¡± Gates added.
In December, LG Chem became the first company in the world to receive pre-qualification approval from the WHO to supply Sabin IPV to international aid organizations.
It signed a $80 million supply deal with UNICEF and will be responsible for providing 20 percent of the organization¡¯s total supplies. The vaccine would be distributed to 70 countries starting next month.
By Pulse
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