SK Bioscience Begins Exporting Chickenpox Vaccine to Latin America

PAHO Order Volume... Total Amount of 39.9 Billion KRW

SK Bioscience's chickenpox vaccine 'Sky Varicella'

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] SK Bioscience has started supplying its self-developed varicella vaccine 'Sky Varicella' to the Latin American market, the world's largest international procurement market.

On the 23rd, SK Bioscience announced that it has begun the first export of the initial shipment of varicella vaccine to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), an international organization under the United Nations.

This is the first export shipment of a provisional order worth $31.27 million (approximately 39.9 billion KRW) that was preliminarily notified by PAHO in February. SK Bioscience finalized the supply volume for the first half of the year with PAHO last month. The company explained, "In the second half of the year, additional supply beyond this year's provisional demand volume can be expected."

PAHO, along with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), is considered the largest vaccine demand source in the world. It is responsible for large-scale vaccine procurement on behalf of Latin American countries.

Sky Varicella confirmed immunogenicity and efficacy in children aged 12 months to 12 years through multinational global clinical trials including Latin America. To participate in international tenders led by UN-affiliated organizations such as PAHO, it also received the World Health Organization (WHO) prequalification (PQ) certification in 2019, becoming the second varicella vaccine worldwide to obtain this. Notably, in clinical trials, it demonstrated superior antibody levels and equivalent safety by using an existing WHO PQ-certified varicella vaccine as a control group.

According to the global market research firm Brand Essence Market Research, the global varicella vaccine market is expected to grow from $3.21 billion (approximately 4.09 trillion KRW) in 2021 at an average annual growth rate of 5.8%, reaching $4.76 billion (approximately 6.07 trillion KRW) by 2028.

Sky Varicella is currently also exported to overseas countries such as Thailand. Through national public tenders, it supplied 1.5 million doses of Sky Varicella to Turkey last year and is steadily expanding its global market base by proceeding with approvals in various Latin American countries including Chile and Mexico.

Jae-yong Ahn, CEO of SK Bioscience, said, “Based on technology recognized globally, our vaccine is gradually expanding its reach into international procurement markets including PAHO. Beyond the vaccines already developed, we will expand our business portfolio into various areas such as the soon-to-be-commercialized COVID-19 vaccine, next-generation pneumococcal vaccines, and further into messenger RNA (mRNA) platform vaccines and cell and gene therapies (CGT), establishing ourselves as a global company.”