SK Bioscience, the Korean vaccine maker, said its annual sales and operating profit fell drastically in 2022 due to the waning global demand for Covid-19 vaccines.
According to the company's public filing on Wednesday, the company recorded sales and operating profit of 456.7 billion won and 115 billion won ($362.3 million and $91.2 million) last year, down 50.8 and 75.5 percent, respectively, compared to 2021.
The company's net profit also dropped 65.5 percent year-on-year to 122.4 billion won last year.
SK Bioscience attributed the earnings decline to the decrease in contract manufacturing organization (CMO) business for Covid-19 vaccines.
SK Bioscience had been manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines for AstraZeneca and Novavax, which helped the company record an all-time-high sales of 929 billion won in 2021.
However, with the pandemic turning to endemic, the company's CMO contracts were either terminated or changed.
While the company launched SKYCovione, a homegrown Covid-19 vaccine, and hoped that sales from the vaccine would make up for the CMO sales loss, the company failed to reach meaningful sales due to Korea's high vaccination rate and continuous emergence of new variants.
Due to the abysmal revenue in Korea, the company had hoped to raise sales of SKYCovione through export contracts to developing countries after receiving the World Health Organization's (WHO) emergency use listing (EUL) approval.
The company had continuously stated that it expects to receive EUL approval by the end of 2022 but that has yet to happen.
SK Bioscience suspended the production of SKYCovione in November 2022.
SK Bioscience to double down on vaccine research
Despite the poor revenue outcome, the company said it would spend 325.7 billion won to build the Songdo Global R&PD Center (Global Research & Process Development Center) by the first half of 2025.
SK Bioscience stressed that it plans to move its headquarters and research institute to Songdo, Incheon, after the R&PD center construction is completed.
The company will establish a pilot plant, which refers to a small-scale test facility constructed before introducing a new method or product, to secure global competitiveness, it added.