South Korean firm LG Chem has announced that it will supply essential vaccines, including polio vaccines, for infants and young children to solve global public health issues.
 
To that end, LG Chem has won a supply contract worth a total $200 million in a UNICEF bid with its polio vaccine Eupolio and a pentavalent vaccine Eupenta that prevents diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and meningitis.
 
The contract covers $100 million worth of Eupolio for two years (from 2024 to 2025) and $100 million worth of Eupenta for five years (from 2023 to 2027). Based on this contract, LG Chem will supply vaccines for approximately 80 million infants and children worldwide.
 
In particular, the company has cemented its position as a major global supplier by securing more than 30 percent of the total procurement volume in the polio vaccine bid. This comes from LG Chem’s active investment in a facility to boost the production of Eupolio by over 60 million doses per year and expand its supply.
  
The company received the World Health Organisation Prequalification (WHO PQ) approval for Eupenta and Eupolio in 2016 and 2020, respectively. Since the first approval of its hepatitis B vaccine Euvax in 1996, LG Chem has been providing essential vaccines for infants and children for about three decades. Last year, the company’s vaccine business recorded a year-on-year growth rate of more than 20 percent.
 
LG Chem is currently developing two hexavalent vaccines: a combination of Eupolio and Eupenta, and one that adds an improved form of acellular Pertussis (aP) to Eupolio.