Mr. Koo Kwang Mo, Chairman and Chief Executive of LG, has made a personal donation of 1 billion KRW (US$840,000) to the International Vaccine Institute to support the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The health of human beings is under significant threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. I hope that this donation to the International Vaccine Institute will contribute to accelerating the development of a vaccine, and help us overcome the crisis together, LG Chairman Koo said.

“IVI is extremely grateful to Chairman Koo Kwang-Mo for his very considerate, generous and timely donation to support the development of a vaccine against Covid-19,” said Dr. Jerome Kim, Director General of IVI. “IVI is committed to redoubling efforts to expedite the development of a vaccine in collaboration with our partners and maximizing the impact of his valuable contribution to benefit people around the world.”

IVI will use the donation, which has been made through the Korea Support Committee for IVI, to support research into ways to understand how the immune system protects against COVID-19, improve the response to COVID-19 vaccines (as well as other vaccines), increase IVI’s capacity to measure important protective (immune) responses generated by COVID-19 vaccines, and prepare sites around the world where COVID-19 vaccine trials might be conducted.