CEO of Vietnam’s homegrown COVID-19 vaccine company passes away

His death was confirmed by Nguyen Thi Son, founder of Son Kim Group and Ho Nhan’s mother-in-law.

His passing leaves a deep sense of loss for his family, the business community, and those who accompanied him on the journey to develop Nanocovax—one of Vietnam’s key COVID-19 vaccine research projects during the coronavirus outbreak.

Born in 1966, Ho Nhan was a Vietnamese American who led Nanogen Biopharmaceutical Biotechnology JSC since its founding in 1997.

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, he and his team began planning the development of a Vietnamese vaccine. 

Nanogen used its own funding for the research and development of Nanocovax without relying on the state budget.

The vaccine was approved by the National Ethics Committee in Biomedical Research for phase 1 clinical trials, and received mid-term evaluations for phase 2 and phase 3 trials.

Although it was once expected to be the first domestically produced COVID-19 vaccine for public use in Vietnam, plans for mass vaccination with Nanocovax ultimately did not materialize.