KUALA LUMPUR (March 18): Bintai Kinden Corp Bhd is collaborating with Institut Jantung Negara Sdn Bhd (IJN) on Covid-19 vaccine development in Malaysia.

In a statement on Friday (March 18), Bintai Kinden said pursuant to its Memorandum of Understanding with IJN in September 2020, it had entered into a cooperative agreement with the institute to establish a strategic partnership in the area of commercial development of Covid-19 vaccine in Malaysia.

It said the collaboration was based on an existing partnership between the its subsidiary Bintai Healthcare Sdn Bhd (BHSB), Generex Biotechnology Corp (Generex) and NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology Inc to advance the commercialisation of Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine in Malaysia.

Under the agreement, Bintai Kinden will be responsible for the introduction of the Covid-19 vaccine in Malaysia while IJN will perform and lead the clinical tests of the vaccine as required by the Health Ministry.

IJN will be the clinical research organisation and one of the study sites for Bintai Kinden under the planned commercial development of the Covid-19 vaccine in Malaysia.

Bintai Kinden executive director Azri Azerai said the partnership with IJN will bring the company a step closer to introducing a new Covid-19 vaccine in Malaysia.

“After Generex has received the full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval on the vaccine and provides full documentation to BHSB, BHSB will commence the registration process to National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) of Malaysia for the vaccine,” he said.

Bintai Kinden also handed over a RM100,000 mock cheque as the initial grant to IJN through the establishment of Bintai Healthcare-IJN Covid 19 Research Grant to fund the necessary research programmes.