MVP Group procures 800K doses of Covid-19 vaccines
Companies of magnate Manuel V. Pangilinan have procured 800,000 doses of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccines for their personnel and household members of their employees.
Pangilinan said 750,000 doses of those vaccines are from Moderna and 50,000 from AstraZeneca.
“We have offered to all our employees these vaccines. It’s (a) voluntary offer so it’s not compulsory on our employees,” Pangilinan, who also chairs Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), said at the virtual annual stockholders’ meeting of the company over the weekend.
MPIC and PLDT Inc. have around 55,000 employees, he added.
Pangilinan said that aside from its employees, the MVP Group will also extend the vaccination program to the members of households of their personnel.
Meanwhile, Pangilinan said MPIC remains keen on local production of vaccines against Covid-19, but the company aims to produce the vaccine brand preferred by Filipinos.
Pangilinan said MPIC is open to partner with global vaccine producers to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines in the Philippines.
“As a matter of principle, especially Metro Pacific, is interested in the local manufacture of vaccines and also like(s) the boosters that would follow the vaccine application. That’s the general point we wish to make,” he said.
Pangilinan bared that the company had initial discussions with Filipino pharmaceutical firm, Glovax Biotech, for the local production of Covid-19 vaccines.
However, the vaccine that was introduced by Glovax to MPIC “was one that we are not familiar with” and not yet in the approved list of Covid-19 vaccines of the government, he said.
Glovax is partnering with Korean firm Eubiologics for the local production of EuCorVac-19, a next-generation Covid-19 vaccine developed in the United States by POP Biotechnologies.
“We’re seeing particular brands that (are) preferred by Filipinos in terms of vaccines that they would like to have. So we’re probably gravitating with those vaccines as a general point,” Panglinan added. (PNA)
