K-Star Sport Ltd, the appointed sales agent by Kanger International Bhd for COVID-19 vaccines and medical equipment products developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group Corp (Sinopharm) is ready to distribute them in Malaysia soon.
The COVID-19 vaccine by Sinopharm is close to being released on the market.
Sinopharm is the largest and oldest biotech company in China and currently has COVID-19 vaccines under Phase 3 trials.
Since June, Sinopharm’s phase 3 clinical trial in dozens of countries and regions, including the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, Peru and Morocco have had over 100,000 participants.
According to Sinopharm’s chairman Liu Jingzhen, some 100,000 people have been vaccinated with Sinopharm’s vaccine and they showed no adverse reactions so far.
Those who were inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine totalling 56,000 people and travelled abroad had not been infected with the virus, he said in a conference last Friday.
The fact that no one who received the vaccine has been infected, serves as more anecdotal evidence that the vaccine is working.
Liu had said previously that Sinopharm will produce about 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year, and estimates it will make 1 billion doses next year, to guarantee supplies especially for use by Chinese people.
Kanger secured an agreement with Sinopharm Group Hunan Changde Medical Co Ltd in September to distribute the COVID-19 vaccines in Malaysia and has been looking for a well-established logistics and distribution provider.
Kanger told Bursa Malaysia last week that it has entered into an MoU with Main Market-listed K-Star to appoint the latter as the sales agent of the Covid-19 vaccines for private clinics in Malaysia.
K-Star has expanded its activities into the healthcare sector and the sub-distribution sale and marketing of COVID-19 vaccines.
The MOU will pave the way to the signing of a distribution contract.
For Kanger, the deal with K-Star will add value to the group as it is now focused on expanding its business into the healthcare industry, which includes the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
Shares of Kanger traded in high volume today to almost 435 million shares at the day’s closing. It rose to as high as 21 sen, with a market capitalisation of almost RM350 million.
K-Star also traded heavily with close to 42 million shares exchanging hands. The stock rose to as high as 98 sen today from yesterday’s closing of 83.5 sen.
