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- If everything goes according to plan, they will be able to produce around 200,000 vaccines this year.
- According to WHO, they have at least 60 COVID-19 vaccination candidates.
A Japanese biotech company is planning to mass-produce coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines within the year, Takara Bio president and CEO Koichi Nakao said in an interview with Nikkei Asian Review.
The company partnered with a bio company called AnGes and Osaka University to develop a DNA vaccine that can potentially be used against the virus. Its clinical trials will start in the summer season of the country.
Japan’s government is also supportive of the idea as its health ministry approves a production and sales license this fall.
This means that the company would be ready to supply the vaccines to 200,000 people this year.
The vaccines would be produced in Takara Bio’s main factory in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture. Once the drug companies can mass produce vaccines, the Japanese government will start easing the current restrictions on the citizen’s movements and business activities.
Nakao said that the facilities to be used in producing hundreds of vaccines required for the trial are perfectly ready and that there is no problem with the mass production if they apply the existing technologies.
The DNA vaccine will take some of COVID-19’s gene information and give it to the patient’s immune system. The immune system then will be able to attack the virus as soon as it enters the body.
This is only one of the more than 60 COVID-19 vaccine candidates, according to the World Health Organization. The potential medicine against the contagious virus is being developed by various pharmaceutical companies and startups around the world.
