Green Cross Corporation held a ceremony to celebrate the opening of its vaccine plant in Hwasun, Jeollanam-do in the Hwasun industrial complex on June 2 and started vaccine production.

The ceremony was attended by over 400 people including Jeollanam-do Governor Park Jun-young, Vice President of Green Cross Corp. Heo Il-seop, lawmaker Choi In-gi, Korea Food and Drug Administration Deputy Director Lee Sang-yong, Jeollanam-do Provincial Council Chairman Park In-hwan, and Jeollanam-do residents.

The Hwasun production base is the twelfth vaccine plant in the world. It is capable of producing up to 50 million doses of flu vaccine, or 20 million doses on an annual basis, replacing imported vaccine ingredients. In particular, Green Cross Corp. secured H1N1 virus, for flu vaccine production, from the U.K. National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), partner organizations of the World Health Organization, on June 8.

The plant will churn out 390,000 doses during this month and at least 12 million doses by February next year after safety and efficacy tests. Given that the domestic vaccine market became a KRW 70 billion business at the end of last year, the Hwasun plant is expected to replace imports worth about KRW 40 billion to 50 billion with its products.

At the ceremony, Governor Park said, "The Jeollabuk-do provincial government will concentrate energies on developing vaccine production as a new growth engine for the province by making linkages with the Nano-Bio Technology Research Center in Jangseong and BT Control Center in Gokseong, Jangheung Natural Resources Research Institute, Jeollanam-do Korea Traditional Medicine Research Institute."

Source: Yonhap News (July 2, 2009)

** This is an English translation of a Korean news article.