South Korea-based SK bioscience has received the World Health Organisation (WHO) Emergency Use Listing (EUL) of its COVID-19 vaccine, SKYCovione.

SKYCovione is a self-assembled nanoparticle vaccine targeting the receptor binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein for SARS-CoV-2. The vaccine was developed with the Institute for Protein Design (IPD) at the University of Washington SCHOOL OF MEDICINE and uses GSK’s pandemic adjuvant.

The development of SKYCovione has been supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) with support from the European Union (EU)’s Horizon 2020 Programme.

SKYCovione is also the world’s first medicine developed using computational protein design, an approach that uses Rosetta software to engineer protein structures with enough precision to place individual atoms exactly where desired.

Results from a Phase III clinical trial showed that SKYCovione induced neutralising antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 parental strain and had a standard safety and reactogenicity profile. Subsequently, SKYCovione (known as SKYCovion in the UK) was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for active immunisation to prevent COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 in individuals 18 years of age and older in May 2023.