![\"SK](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/news-p.v1.20260529.9db4aaa1eb8b4b369fd0b197a03f77c3_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"SK")
SK Bioscience’s headquarters in Songdo. Photo courtesy of SK Bioscience<\/p>\nSK Bioscience’s headquarters in Songdo. Photo courtesy of SK Bioscience<\/p>\n
SK Bioscience (302440.KS) is accelerating development of a pneumococcal vaccine targeting global markets, leveraging government support. The company plans to channel funds secured through the National Growth Fund into global Phase 3 clinical trials and commercialization preparations to strengthen its next-generation vaccine competitiveness.<\/p>\n
SK Bioscience said Wednesday it held a board meeting and finalized a financing plan based on the National Growth Fund. The decision follows the company’s selection as a recipient of fund support by the Fund Management Review Committee under the Financial Services Commission (FSC) the previous day. This marks the first time a domestic drug and vaccine developer has been selected for National Growth Fund support.<\/p>\n
The total financing approved amounts to 300 billion won. The funds will be provided through ultra-low-interest, long-term borrowing, and the company plans to use the proceeds for research and development (R&D), commercialization preparation, and production capacity enhancement of ‘GBP410,’ a 21-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine currently in global Phase 3 clinical trials.<\/p>\n
GBP410 is a next-generation pneumococcal vaccine candidate being co-developed by SK Bioscience and French pharmaceutical company Sanofi. It features an expanded preventive range compared with existing commercial vaccines. Global Phase 3 trials are currently underway, and the company is accelerating commercialization preparation and production system development with a goal of releasing topline results in the second half of next year.<\/p>\n
The support is significant in that the government has expanded its biotech support beyond its previous focus on production facility construction, recognizing the R&D capabilities and pipeline competitiveness of domestic companies with potential for global market entry. It also aligns with the government’s policy stance of creating a stable development environment for global late-stage clinical trials, which require massive funding.<\/p>\n
The National Growth Fund is a public-private policy financing program established to foster national strategic industries such as artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, biotech, and secondary batteries. Based on a public participation fund structure, it aims to supply long-term capital to future growth industries. The government is selecting support recipients centered on large-scale projects with global competitiveness, presenting next-generation biotech and vaccine development projects at the global Phase 3 clinical stage as a core support area.<\/p>\n
Beyond GBP410, SK Bioscience is expanding its pipeline focused on infectious disease response, including a patch-type influenza vaccine, RSV preventive antibodies, and an mRNA vaccine platform. Earlier this year, the company relocated its headquarters and research center to Songdo, integrating R&D, process development (PD), business development (BD), and marketing functions to further strengthen its global competitiveness.<\/p>\n
“The selection as a National Growth Fund support recipient is a result of recognition for SK Bioscience’s vaccine development capabilities and global business competitiveness,” SK Bioscience CEO Ahn Jae-yong said. “We plan to continue investing in core pipeline development and production infrastructure to strengthen Korea’s vaccine sovereignty and secure capabilities to respond to future infectious diseases.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, SK Bioscience supplies its self-developed influenza vaccine and chickenpox vaccine through the National Immunization Program (NIP). The company also developed Korea’s first shingles vaccine, which is being used in local government vaccination support programs, and is pursuing the development of a cell culture-based avian influenza (H5N1) vaccine as a government project, working to strengthen public health capabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SK Bioscience’s headquarters in Songdo. Photo courtesy of SK Bioscience SK Bioscience (302440.KS) is accelerating development of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[5047,507,5595,21607,5046,5048,241,5044,240,21608],"class_list":["post-34334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk","tag-gbp410","tag-korea-biotech","tag-national-growth-fund","tag-phase-3-clinical-trial","tag-pneumococcal-vaccine","tag-sanofi","tag-sk","tag-sk-bioscience","tag-sk-group","tag-vaccine-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}