SK Bioscience releases second batch of COVID-19 vaccines

Demonstrates its large-scale manufacturing capacity

Will be manufacturing 40 million doses of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine this year after manufacturing 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine last year

Has the capacity to manufacture up to 140million doses annually… plans to triple its capacity by 2026.

SK Bioscience announced that it had shipped its second batch of commercial COVID-19 vaccine products.

 

By manufacturing vaccines for AstraZeneca and then Novavax, the industry's evaluation is that the company has well demonstrated its large-scale and stable manufacturing capacity.

 

SK Bioscience announced that it had shipped the first batch of Nuvaxovid from its L House in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province in the morning of the 9th.

 

The released batch is predicted to be 840,000 doses of the vaccine that was approved for lot release by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety the day before.

 

SK Bioscience plans to ship out 2 million doses by the end of this month.

 

Also, the manufacturing amount is expected to further increase from next month.

 

SK Bioscience had signed an agreement with the government to supply 40 million doses of Nuvaxovid within this year.

 

This is twice the amount of AstraZeneca’s vaccines that were supplied by the company to Korea last year.

 

Last year, AstraZeneca signed a CMO deal with SK Bioscience to supply 20 million doses of its vaccine.

 

SK Bioscience is known to have supplied 9,998,300 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine just in August last year, demonstrating its ability to manufacture and supply up to 10 million doses a month.

 

SK Bioscience is considered to have well demonstrated its large-scale vaccine production capacity with its verified commercial batches of AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines.

 

Biologic agents, including vaccines, require quality verification by the MFDS every time a batch is produced for commercialization.

 

According to SK Bioscience, its L House can manufacture up to 560,000 doses of vaccines per day.

 

Multiplying the capacity by 252 working days, the maximum manufacturing capacity of the plant can be estimated to be around 141.12 million doses.

 

By Q3 of last year, SK Bioscience had manufactured 43.25 million doses of vaccines, including AstraZeneca’s vaccines.

 

In only 3 quarters, the company had manufactured four times the 11.48 million doses it had manufactured during the previous year.

 

By the end of last year, the company had manufactured over 60 million doses.

 

Based on the company’s stable manufacturing capacity, SK Bioscience anticipates it will be able to produce its own COVID-19 vaccine ‘GBP510’ in development without any problem even if it is approved in the first half of this year Currently, 9 lines are in operation in the L House.

 

Excluding the one line used to preserve vaccine solutions (cell bank), a total of 8 lines are being used for the actual manufacturing of vaccines.

 

3 of the lines produce finished Nuvaxovid vaccine products for domestic supply.

 

2 of the other 5 lines produce vaccine solutions for separate supply to Novavax.

 

The remaining 3 lines produce chickenpox, shingles, and pneumococcal vaccines.

 

If GBP510 is approved in the first half of the year and starts being supplied in earnest in Korea, the company may switch a few of the chickenpox, shingles, and pneumococcal vaccine manufacturing lines for its manufacture.

 

SK Bioscience plans to further expand its production capacity in the long term.

 

The company plans to expand its manufacturing facility in two phases.

 

First, the company has secured a new site near L House to establish additional manufacturing facilities for finished products such as pre-filled syringes and liquid vials by 2024.

 

Also, the company set a goal of adding 12 animal cell incubators of a 2,000-liter scale and two microbiological incubators of a 1,000-liter scale at the same time.

 

As the second step, the company plans to additionally secure manufacturing facilities for raw and finished products to triple its capacity by 2026.