MVP says Metro Pacific is eyeing local manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine

Manuel V. Pangilinan-led infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp.(MPIC) is interested to venture in the manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines locally.

“Let me just take this as a matter of principle, the group, especially Metro Pacific, is interested in the local manufacture of vaccines and also the boosters that will follow after vaccine application,” Pangilinan said during MPIC’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Friday.

The businessman, popularly known as “MVP,” confirmed that the company had a discussion with local vaccine distribution firm Glovax Biotech Corp. regarding the latter’s plan to build a COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing plant in the country. /

Glovax is planning to build a P7-billion vaccine plant with a production capacity of 100 million doses in a year.

Apart from producing COVID-19 vaccines for local supply, Glovax’s planned facility is also eyed to produce other vaccines in preparation for any anticipated pandemics in the future so that the Philippines will not be dependent on other countries for vaccine supply, according to Glovax CEO Giovanni Alingog.

Meanwhile, Pangilinan said that MPIC is “open to other vaccine producers globally.”

“We’re seeing particular brands that are preferred by Filipinos in terms of the vaccines that they like to have so we’re probably gravitating to those vaccines as a general point,” he said.—AOL, GMA News