Amidst a hail of in­vest­ments com­ing from South Ko­re­an con­glom­er­ates in­to biotech, in­clud­ing Lotte and Sam­sung, SK is look­ing to get in on the ac­tion.

SK Pharmte­co, a CD­MO and sub­sidiary of the sec­ond-largest con­glom­er­ate in South Ko­rea, is in­vest­ing $35 mil­lion to ex­pand SK’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing plant in the Dublin sub­urb of Swords, Ire­land, in­clud­ing a new build­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to SK, the ex­pan­sion project will pro­vide an in­crease in the site’s man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pac­i­ty and ca­pa­bil­i­ties, com­ing on­line some­time in 2024.

The first phase of the project will in­clude a new man­u­fac­tur­ing build­ing, which will aim to in­crease re­ac­tor vol­ume ca­pac­i­ty. The new build­ing will al­so con­tain fil­tra­tion and dry­ing equip­ment, as­so­ci­at­ed util­i­ties and the ca­pa­bil­i­ty for ad­di­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ing lines and tech­nolo­gies in fu­ture phas­es of the project.

The ex­pan­sion will hap­pen over two phas­es, with ad­di­tion­al fund­ing for sub­se­quent phas­es. On com­ple­tion, the ex­pan­sion will re­sult in an over­all 50% in­crease in ca­pac­i­ty at the Swords cam­pus.

“With sub­stan­tial growth in our busi­ness base, this ex­pan­sion sup­ports SK biotek Ire­land’s po­si­tion as a key con­trib­u­tor to SKPT’s EU and world­wide busi­ness,” said Joyce Fitzhar­ris, pres­i­dent of SK biotek Ire­land, in a state­ment.  The new plant will be lo­cat­ed on the foot­print of a de­com­mis­sioned pro­duc­tion build­ing on-site, with­in prox­im­i­ty to SK’s oth­er site fa­cil­i­ties.

This is the sec­ond ma­jor ex­pan­sion project SK has em­barked on. In 2020, the Swords Cam­pus com­plet­ed a $30 mil­lion re­ac­tor ca­pac­i­ty ex­pan­sion.

The cam­pus has been around for 60 years as a small mol­e­cule API man­u­fac­tur­er, pro­duc­ing on­col­o­gy and car­di­ol­o­gy treat­ments.

This comes at a time not on­ly when oth­er com­pa­nies are look­ing to build out or ex­pand on the Emer­ald Isle, but as SK is mak­ing more in­vest­ments in biotech.

Ear­li­er this year, SK said it will in­vest $350 mil­lion in­to the Cen­ter for Break­through Med­i­cines, with plans to add 2,000 em­ploy­ees as part of a re­dux at the CD­MO’s King of Prus­sia, PA, fa­cil­i­ty.

2021 saw a record $600B in healthcare M&A activity. In 2022, there is an anticipated slowdown in activity, however, M&A prospects remain strong in the medium to long-term. What are future growth drivers for the healthcare sector? Where might we see innovations that drive M&A? RBC’s Andrew Callaway, Global Head, Healthcare Investment Banking discusses with Vito Sperduto, Global Co-Head, M&A.

Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Friday to overturn Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years, Attorney General Merrick Garland sought to somewhat reassure women that states will not be able to ban the prescription drug sometimes used for abortions.

Following the decision, the New England Journal of Medicine also published an editorial strongly condemning the reversal, saying it “serves American families poorly, putting their health, safety, finances, and futures at risk.”

AstraZeneca’s first consumer ad for Evusheld is also a first for drugs that have been granted emergency use authorizations during the pandemic.

The first DTC ad for a medicine under emergency approval, the Evusheld campaign launching this week aims to raise awareness among immunocompromised patients — and spur more use.

Evusheld nabbed emergency authorization in December, however, despite millions of immunocompromised people looking for a solution and now more widespread availability of the drug.

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Despite whispers of a busy year for M&A, deal activity in the pharma space is actually down 30% on a semi-annualized basis, according to PwC’s latest report on deal activity. But don’t rule out larger deals in the second half of the year, the consultants said.

PwC pharmaceutical and life sciences consulting solutions leader Glenn Hunzinger expects to see Big Pharma companies picking up earlier stage companies to try and fill pipeline gaps ahead of a slew of big patent cliffs. Though a bear market continues to maul the biotech sector, Hunzinger said recent deals indicate that pharma companies are still paying above current trading prices.

While European companies, including BioNTech, are focused on increasing vaccine access to African countries by setting up vaccine manufacturing facilities, the European Union is looking westward to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Speaking at a press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pédro Sanchez, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU is launching a new initiative for vaccines and medicines manufacturing in Latin America, to get drugs to Latin America and the Caribbean faster.

GSK is continuing to build out its Barnard Castle site in the UK.

According to the company, it has opened a new aseptic smart manufacturing facility at the site, which is located in County Durham in the northeast of England.

The new facility, known as Q Block, is a fully automated and digital facility that leverages digital technology to make manufacturing operations as efficient as possible.

The 11,500-square-meter facility started construction in 2018 and according to the UK news site Business Live, the costs for the new building were £90 million, or around $110 million.

A drug manufacturing facility in Mexico is drawing the ire of the FDA after it ignored the US regulator’s inspection requests and phone calls.

According to the warning letter issued on June 13, Glicerinas Industriales refused a pre-announced inspection during a phone call with FDA prior to the inspection at the company’s facility in Zapopan, Mexico, a city next to Guadalajara, which was planned for May 16 to May 20.

Covid vaccine access to lower- and middle-income nations has been a concern during the length of the pandemic, but BioNTech is now pushing forward with plans to increase vaccine access for Africa.

Construction work has kicked off for an mRNA manufacturing facility in Kigali, Rwanda. According to BioNTech, the facility, dubbed the African modular mRNA manufacturing facility, has a target for the first set of manufacturing tools to be delivered to the site by the end of this year.

The story of Amryt Pharma’s candidate for the genetic skin condition epidermolysis bullosa, or EB, will soon enter another chapter.

After the Irish drugmaker’s candidate, dubbed Oleogel-S10 and marketed as Filsuvez, was handed a CRL earlier this year, the company announced in a press release that it plans to submit a formal dispute resolution request for the company’s NDA for Oleogel-S10.

Bioscience & Technology Business Center The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas

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