KUALA LUMPUR: Pharmaniaga Bhd will start selling Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in the open market from next month as it has fulfilled its commitment to the government, group managing director Datuk Zulkarnain Md Eusope said.
Zulkarnain also clarified that the total of 14 million doses of Sinovac vaccine for sale to interested states and private companies was to speed up the vaccination process nationwide.
He said after the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency's (NPRA) approval, Phamrmaniaga's "fill and finish" programme had reached four million doses a month compared to two million doses previously.
"Hence, from June to September we will have a surplus of 14 million doses from the fill and finish programme. With this surplus, we can move simultaneously whether to supply back to the government, the private sector, or the state government to ensure the vaccination process runs smoothly," he told a virtual press conference today.
Zulkarnain said the ceiling price and sales guidelines for the Sinovac vaccine by private parties had been proposed and would be announced by the govenrment next week.
"The Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) will meet next week and discuss the matter," he said.
Pharmaniaga has supplied 12 million doses of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine to the government and the final batch was supplied on July 21, which was four-and-a-half months earlier than the original contractual schedule.
Zulkarnain said Pharmaniaga was getting a lot of demand from overseas to supply the Sinovac vaccine.
Many countries were experiencing a shortage of the vaccine and could not get the vaccine on time, he added.
"In the surrounding countries (Indonesia, the Philippine, Thailand and Cambodia) they could not get the supply of the vaccine. In Australia especially, they could not get the vaccine on time because the vaccine production is very limited.
"Therefore, Pharaminaga has taken early steps to get as many as supply of the vaccine to make sure that we have extra doses to be supplied not only to the state governments and private sector but also for the export markets. Currently, we are in discussion with Sinovac regarding this matter," he added.