South Korea and the Gates Foundation will cooperate on vaccine development

Seoul, Aug 16 (EFE).- The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, and the founder of Microsoft and philanthropist Bill Gates today promised to cooperate in the development of vaccines and other areas of health, during the visit of the tycoon to Seoul.

The South Korean government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation showed their willingness to extend their collaboration beyond the recent launch of the Asian country’s first domestic anticovid vaccine, within the framework of the American businessman’s trip to South Korea.

Yoon thanked Gates for his contributions to technological and industrial development and his efforts to increase access to vaccines and treatments against covid in developing countries, as well as the foundation’s assistance to the South Korean company SK Bioscience, developer of the aforementioned vaccine. anticovid.

The South Korean leader expressed his willingness to “establish substantial cooperative relations” with the Gates Foundation to “help promote global health and continue building advanced biotechnologies,” according to the presidential office.

Gates, for his part, described South Korea as an “ideal partner” for the foundation’s goals of growth, financing and developing new capabilities, through collaboration with universities, companies or non-profit organizations.

The tycoon highlighted the “large number of capacities” available to the country and specifically valued “the commitment to biotechnological innovation”, something that in his opinion generates “opportunities to create good jobs and improve public health both in rich countries as well as in developing countries”.

Gates, who is visiting Seoul until Wednesday, also gave a speech today at the South Korean National Assembly and met with officials from SK Bioscience, with which the Gates Foundation has collaborated since 2013.

Both sides signaled their desire to continue working together on the development of new vaccines and treatments “to respond to the next pandemic.”

The businessman’s visit coincides with the announcement this Monday that the SK technology conglomerate will invest 250 million dollars in the TerraPower company, founded by Gates and dedicated to developing small nuclear reactors or modular reactors.

This investment is part of a fundraising round of 750 million dollars, co-directed by the businessman. EFE

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