KUALA LUMPUR (May 26): Pharmaniaga Bhd today said it has received lots of interests from state governments and private parties to procure China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine from the group.
But its priority is the Federal Government, as the group is committed to help the nationwide roll out of the vaccination programme, said managing director Datuk Zulkarnain Md Eusope.
“We have many states requesting to purchase the vaccine; we have Selangor, Sabah, Perak, Pahang and Johor. In fact, we have requests from overseas as well.
“Hopefully, by the third week of June, we can start delivering to private parties,” he said during a media briefing today.
The Sarawak government had previously expressed its intention to procure 500,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine, after it received approval to do so from Putrajaya.
On the price that Pharmaniaga plans to charge the states and private parties who want to procure Sinovac vaccine from the group, Zulkarnain said Pharmaniaga has yet to receive the go-ahead from the Federal Government for such discussions, and that the matter is confidential.
“When it comes to vaccines, it's very confidential because we don’t want to have an issue with the price,” he added.
Meanwhile, Pharmaniaga said it is on track to meet its contractual obligation to the Federal Government ahead of the agreed delivery schedule, by supplying both filled-and-finished and finished Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines.
Zulkarnain said its unit Pharmaniaga Life Science Sdn Bhd's (PLS's) high-tech plant has completed filling and finishing a total of 1.89 million doses of Sinovac vaccines up to May 23.
“PLS is also ready to ramp up production from two million to four million doses a month, in order to help the government expedite its vaccination programme and achieve herd immunity,” he said.