President Moon Jae-in met with Novavax CEO Stanley Erck and expressed hope that the U.S. pharmaceutical company will further advance cooperation with SK Bioscience in producing COVID-19 vaccines.

The meeting took place on Tuesday at the presidential office in Seoul, during which the president also expressed hope that the vaccines would soon be available in South Korea.

Noting that Novavax signed a consignment production deal with SK Bioscience, a vaccine development subsidiary of SK Group, Moon said the vaccines are extremely significant to South Korea. 

Under the deal, Seoul will have enough Novavax vaccines for 20 million people as they will be produced by SK Bioscience. They will be the first vaccines to be produced domestically via technology transfer.