Novavax to Transfer Technology to SK Bioscience
SK Bioscience will produce Novavax vaccines for COVID-19 through a technology transfer from the U.S. pharmaceutical company, the company announced on Jan. 20.
SK Bioscience already signed a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) deal with Novavax in August 2020, following a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) contract with AstraZeneca in July.
As Novavax has signed CMO contracts with several global companies, some industry analysts say that the technology transfer will be limited to the amount of vaccines for supply in South Korea.
SK Bioscience’s latest deal with Novavax is meaningful as it will allow South Korea to produce and supply COVID-19 vaccines. Otherwise, South Korea will have to rely on global pharmaceutical companies to secure COVID-19 vaccines.
The deal is also expected to help SK Bioscience accelerate the development of its own COVID-19 vaccine. Recently, SK Bioscience has started clinical trials for NBP2001, a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed in-house.
Novavax’s technology transfer, combined with SK Bioscience’s own platform technology, is expected to make the Korean company a strong global player in COVID-19 vaccines. This brightens the prospect of the company’s IPO scheduled for this year. SK Bioscience’s sales swelled from 99.4 billion won in 2018, the first year of the company’s split-off from SK Chemicals, to 183.9 billion won in 2019 and 158.6 billion won in the first three quarters of 2020.