(Bloomberg) — Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. signed a technology transfer deal with Vingroup JSC that will allow the Vietnamese conglomerate to begin producing the U.S. company’s Covid-19 vaccines early next year, providing a boost to a country with less than 1% of its population fully vaccinated.
Vingroup’s unit known as Vinbiocare, with help from San Diego-based Arcturus, will build a manufacturing facility in Vietnam. Arcturus will provide the Vietnamese company with an exclusive license to make its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine candidate solely for sale and use in the country, according to the statement.
Vietnam has said it’s working to lock up deals for as many as 170 million Covid-19 vaccine doses by the end of the year. While more than 6.4 million injections have been given, just over 659,000 people in the nation of 98 million were fully vaccinated as of Aug. 2, according to the Ministry of Health.
Arcturus is among several companies looking to make vaccines to compete with Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and others. The stock soared as high as $129 last year, before slipping to about $31. Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management LLC is among its biggest shareholders, according to data compiled by Bloomberg as of March.
The Vietnam factory, located inside an electronic equipment complex run by the group’s VinSmart division in Hanoi, will require an estimated investment of $200 million and have the capacity to make 200 million doses per year, according to Vingroup, whose businesses range from real estate to technology and electric vehicles.
Vinbiocare will coordinate with the Ministry of Health to carry out phase-3 clinical trials of the vaccine candidate, called VBC-COV19-154 domestically, on 20,000 people this month, Vingroup said in the statement. The company expects to seek approval for the vaccine in December for emergency use in Vietnam.
The health ministry is also assisting local companies in talks with Russia about a technology transfer to help Vietnam produce the Sputnik V vaccine.
The Southeast Asian country is battling a major outbreak and has reported 155,242 domestic infections as of Monday, with 1,306 deaths so far, according to the health ministry.
(Updates with type of vaccine in second paragraph.)
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