On 12 October 2020 at 08.30 hrs, Ambassador Pisanu Suvanajata witnessed the signing ceremony for the Letter of Intent (LoI) on the manufacturing and supply of Oxford University's potential COVID-19 vaccine, known as AZD1222, between the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand (on behalf of the Royal Thai Government), Siam Bioscience, Siam Cement Group (SCG) and AstraZeneca. The ceremony took place at the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand, while Mr. James Teague, Country President of AstraZeneca (Thailand), attended virtually from the Royal Thai Embassy in London.

This LoI is the first strategic partnership of AstraZeneca for manufacturing in Southeast Asia and marks another milestone of collaboration between Thailand and the UK. Under the LoI, all parties agreed to work together to prepare large scale manufacturing capacity at Siam Bioscience to create broad, equitable and timely access to the potential vaccine in Thailand as well as in wider Southeast Asia. Most importantly, this collaboration on the production of COVID-19 vaccine between AstraZeneca and Siam Bioscience is undertaken on the basis of non-profit with a view to having a rapid and comprehensive distribution for domestic use in Thailand and peoples in Southeast Asia. This noble initiative is therefore primarily aimed for the benefit of mankind.

Through this partnership, the Royal Thai Government, Siam Bioscience and SCG will join AstraZeneca and Oxford University, together with the UK Government, and leading health organisations such as WHO, CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) and GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance), to enable global distribution of the potential vaccine as soon as possible, once clinical trials and approval for use on humans are made. It is expected that the manufacturing process in Thailand can start within the first quarter in 2021.