The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has donated THB 40 million (approx. USD 1.20 million) to support two development projects by Thai medical teams and experts on Covid-19 vaccine comprising 1) Baiya vaccine by the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, and 2) ChulaCov19 by the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University and Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital - the Thai Red Cross Society, in line with the government's policy to help speed up the progress of research and development (R&D) of the Thai vaccines to success.
SET President Pakorn Peetathawatchai said that even though the COVID-19 situation in Thailand has improved, it is still necessary to ensure that Thais are immune to the virus in the long run. Having vaccine R&D and innovations in Thailand by the Thai teams will help tackle the situations with less budget than importing them from abroad. SET aims to play a part in helping people and society by donating THB 40 million for the development of both projects which need a lot of funding. The donation is in accordance with SET's intention to promote Thai innovations that can lead to tangible results, and the vaccine development projects are also in line with SET's vision "To Make the Capital Market 'Work' for Everyone".
CU Enterprise Foundation Board Makorn Phongthanaprueks said that Baiya vaccine by Baiya Phytopharm Co., Ltd. is Thailand's first protein subunit vaccine from Nicotiana benthamiana leaves researched and developed by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Waranyoo Phoolcharoen and Asst. Prof. Dr. Suthira Taychakhoonavudh, lecturers at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University. The Thai Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved to produce the vaccine for human trials. The Baiya vaccine production covers from upstream to downstream processes starting from the pilot plant to produce plant-based vaccines and biologics at Baiya's facility at Chulalongkorn University, before sending to KinGen Biotech Co., Ltd. for purification process. The vaccine will then be mixed and bottled at Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute, the Thai Red Cross Society. The vaccine is currently in the first phase of clinical trial which started opening for volunteer application from September 2021All volunteers have received the full second dose of the vaccine and preliminary results showed that the vaccine safety is satisfied and it is under process to further analyze information in other aspects. The company stands ready to study and develop the next generation of the vaccine which has effectiveness against variants.
Dean of Faculty of Medicine Assoc. Prof. Chanchai Sittipunt said that preliminary results of phase 1 and 2 of human trials of ChulaCov19 proved that Thailand's home-grown mRNA vaccine is safe and can boost immunity to high level which is on par with the Pfizer BioNTech while being even better than AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines. The outstanding feature is that it generates much higher protection against the original strain of Covid-19. This high antibody response is also capable of inhibiting transmission of all four strains: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
Chula Vaccine Research Center together with Bionet Asia Co., Ltd. has produced 30,000 vaccine doses for the 3rd phase of human trials. The trial vaccines have been completely bottled and are now under quality and effectiveness inspection by the FDA to ensure that their quality meets the FDA and the international standards. After the FDA approval, the vaccine will be tested on 3,750 volunteers around January of 2022. If they are safe and can boost the volunteers' immunity to Pfizer's level, the research and development team will register with the FDA for emergency use. The team is thankful to SET for the research support which will further benefit the innovation and development for efficiency and excellence.
SET and the SET Foundation has been supporting and contributing over THB 112 million of donations through various hospitals, organizations, foundations as well as charitable organizations and volunteers to ease the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on people and those affected by the spread this year, to benefit the communities, society and the public during these difficult times until the situation will be improved.