KUALA LUMPUR: Pharmaniaga Bhd’s wholly owned subsidiary Pharmaniaga Research Centre Sdn Bhd has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the National Institutes of Biotechnology Malaysia (NIBM) to collaborate on vaccine research and development.
It said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia that the MoU shall come into effect from Nov 1, 2021, and shall remain in force for a period of three years or until termination of the MoU, whichever is earlier.
The partnership will include cooperation in the provision of technical services subject to services fees, the provision of industrial and stakeholders input and any other areas of cooperation to be agreed upon by the parties.
“Malaysia has been relying on the importation of vaccines as currently there are no human vaccines being developed and produced locally. The closest is the fill and finish manufacturing of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine by our wholly-owned subsidiary Pharmaniaga LifeScience Sdn Bhd (PLS).
“Thus, backed by our valuable experience with Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, we will work together with NIBM in many areas of R&D and training on vaccines so that Malaysia will be able to develop and produce various types of vaccines for babies, children and adults in the near future,” said Pharmaniaga in a Monday statement.
It added that this co-operation will be another step towards building national readiness against any pandemic in the future, as well strengthen its plan to establish world’s first halal vaccine manufacturing plant in Malaysia
According to the statement, NIBM is established as a catalyst for the acceleration in growth of the Malaysian biotechnology industry pursuant to the National Biotechnology Policy.
NIBM is responsible to promote a knowledge-based economy through the establishment of a sustainable ecosystem of research, development, innovation and commercialization in the areas of agriculture, pharmaceutical and genomic biotechnology through its three institutes namely Agro-Biotechnology Institute Malaysia, Malaysian Institute of Pharmaceuticals and Nutraceuticals and Malaysia Genome Institute.
Source: The Star
