KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 26): Malaysia's only licence holder for the distribution of the Sinovac vaccine — Pharmaniaga Bhd — is looking to grow its Covid-19 vaccine business as its main revenue contribution moving forward, as it seeks to expand its presence into Southeast Asian and African markets.

In a virtual press briefing today, Pharmaniaga group managing director Datuk Zulkarnain Md Eusope said with more than 700 million population in the Southeast Asian region and 1.3 billion population in the African continent — coupled with the fact that an estimated less than 20% and 5% of the populations respectively having received Covid-19 vaccines — these markets have tremendous potential for growth and will be the group's focus areas to supply the vaccine.

"Following our completion of distributing and supplying Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine to the federal government totalling 20.4 million doses, we are looking at further opportunities to export the vaccine overseas.

"We are negotiating with many countries not only in Southeast Asia but also in Africa. The most important thing is whatever countries that we are discussing with, we have to also get the consent from Sinovac Life Sciences Co Ltd because they are our main supplier of the source of the vaccine," he said.

Zulkarnain highlighted that Pharmaniaga is one of only five companies in the world that have manufacturing plants to produce Sinovac Covid-19 fill-and-finish vaccine, and it is looking to grow its manufacturing capacity in order to meet the demand of the vaccine until 2025.

He added that Pharmaniaga will continue its production at its wholly-owned subsidiary plant, Pharmaniaga LifeScience Sdn Bhd, following the recent approval from the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency to manufacture, fill and finish Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine two dose per vial.

"This will immediately ramp up the plant's capacity from two million to four million doses per month, starting from August 2021. We are ever ready to provide national stockpile support to the government in the event of delays in delivery by other vaccine manufacturers as well as to meet the demand from the state governments and private sector," he said.

In Malaysia, Zulkarnain updated that Pharmaniaga has supplied 18.4 million doses of Sinovac to date, out of the total 20.4 million doses ordered by the federal government. He added that the two million doses left in the pipeline will be completed by the end of the month, ahead of the initial contract schedule.

The roll-out of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in the country has been a key contributor to Pharmaniaga's earnings improvement. Its net profit expanded 37.3% in the second quarter ended June 30, 2021 (2QFY21) to RM13.7 million from RM9.98 million, as revenue rose 82.28% to RM1.18 billion, from RM645.76 million on the back of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine sale to the government.

Quarterly earnings per share stood at 1.05 sen, compared with 0.76 sen in 2QFY20, Pharmaniaga's filing showed.

The group has declared a dividend of 1.5 sen in the quarter, up from 0.5 sen in 2QFY20, bringing the cumulative half-year payout to 2.3 sen against 1.7 sen in 1HFY20.