SK Bioscience said Tuesday that it would expand its contract manufacturing business on top of the existing platform technologies for various vaccines under development on the occasion of initial public offering early next month.
In a news conference, CEO Ahn Jae-yong said that the company has recently developed viral vector vaccine technology used in immune-oncology and cell and gene therapy while manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines. The company is making a plan to enter into contract manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals.
Ahn added that Covid-19 provided SK Bioscience an opportunity to strengthen its CMO capacity by agreeing with AstraZeneca and Novavax to produce their vaccines. SK Bioscience, a vaccine maker of the SK Group, manufactures the two companies’ Covid-19 vaccines at its plant in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province.
The company will settle the public offering price for institutional investors between next Thursday and Friday. It seeks to raise about 1 trillion won ($900 million) through the IPO.
SK Bioscience plans to invest 400 billion won in facilities, 100 billion in securing new vaccine platform, and 200 billion in research and development of pneumococcal vaccine jointly with Sanofi. It will spend the rest to cover the operating cost.
Ahn said that the consigned manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines allowed more stable platforms, such as virus vector technology.
He also assured the business reliability of its original Covid-19 vaccines under development. The company’s Covid-19 vaccine candidates are NBP2001 and GBP501, which are being developed using synthetic antibodies. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) have supported the study, Ahn said.
NBP2001 and GBP501 are in clinical trials, and GBP510 is likely to enter phase 3 study in the third quarter of 2021. The company expects GBP510 to receive authorization and commercialize it during the first half of the next year.
Commenting on concerns about the somewhat late release of Covid-19 vaccines in Korea, Ahn said the demand for Covid-19 shots is likely to continue in the future due to the relatively short duration of antibodies.
Ahn said that CEPI divides the vaccines into two groups by their debuting stage -- Wave 1 and 2. Both NBP2001 and GBP501 are included in Wave 2, referring to latecomers with better efficacy and safety than the starter vaccines belonging in Wave 1.
“We plan to secure other platform technologies such as messenger RNA (mRNA) and expand the contract manufacture business of biopharmaceuticals other than vaccines,” Ahn said. “We will grow into a global bio platform hub as we have been expanding our business overseas based on experience in producing medicines, including vaccines.”