- Mayor Claudia López met with the vice president and the senior director of International Business of the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech, to explore the investment possibilities to mass produce vaccines against COVID-19.
- The team from Sinovac Biotech alongside the Bogotá Health Secretariat will visit two pharmaceutical companies to review if they are in line with the production specs of the vaccine.
- he Mayor stated that, "We are very committed to this opportunity to mass produce this vaccine. We are ready to leave this legacy to Bogotá, because COVID-19 is the current pandemic, but it will not be the last."
A team on behalf of the Mayor's Office of Bogotá, led by Mayor Claudia López and the Secretary of Health, Alejandro Gómez López, met with representatives from the Chinese pharmaceutical Sinovac Biotech. Composed of its vice president, Weining Meng and its senior director. of international business Jack Tang. The topic of discussion was to explore the feasibility of both the public and private sectors to achieve the production of vaccines.
Until now CoronaVac, the Sinovac Biotech vaccine, has been the most used in the Colombian immunization plan. Mayor López thanked the Sinovac Biotech for its commitment, not only for the development of the vaccine and for facilitating access to it globally, “Thank you for everything that you have done for humanity. Bogotá works alongside China to fulfil the great project of the metro line; the production of vaccines will be the second great project that we undertake.”
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During their visit to Bogotá, the Chinese pharmaceutical team, accompanied by the Bogotá Health Secretariat, will visit the Limor pharmaceutical companies of Colombia, in Soacha and Vitalis, in Sopó to probe if they meet their vaccine production needs.
Regarding the prospects of the project, Weining Meng, vice president of Sinovac stressed, "This is merely a starting point, we want to build trust here, working together, with the support of the Mayor's Office and the government, we can lower the costs of the vaccine."
This meeting was also attended by the director of the Public Health laboratory, Lucy Gabriela Delgado Murcia; ProColombia's vice president of International Strategy and Innovation, Hiroshi Wago; the Investment Promotion Manager of Invest in Bogotá, Mónica Sánchez; the Executive Director of the Limor biotechnology company in Colombia, Giovanni Mojica; the president of the Colombian pharmaceutical laboratory Vitalis, Esteban Lizarazo, and the District Director of International Relations, Luz Amparo Medina.
The Mayor highlighted the importance of implementing this technical transfer of knowledge for the local industry, to achieve a production plan, “The level of shortage of health technologies that we have witnessed in this pandemic has left many, ourselves included, defenseless. We are very committed to this opportunity to produce this vaccine. We are ready to leave this legacy to Bogotá, because COVID-19 is the current epidemic, but it will not be the last," stated the Mayor.
By the end of the meeting, Mayor López re-iterated to the Sinovac representatives the District’s will to carry out the project. "We are ready to improve the standards that are necessary, Bogotá is ready to commit itself to vaccine production, in terms of human resources, infrastructure and joint investment."
