[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] Inventage Lab announced on the 2nd that it was recently selected for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's project "Advanced Technology Development for Vaccine Raw and Auxiliary Materials Production (Vaccine Production Process Technology Development)" with a total project cost of approximately 6.5 billion KRW.
Through this project, Inventage Lab will establish quality evaluation standards and process technologies for messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine formulations, and develop large-scale manufacturing equipment and processes. By securing compliance with relevant GMP standards, the company aims to develop large-scale manufacturing equipment capable of producing mRNA vaccines for 1 million doses per batch, thereby securing a domestic manufacturing platform to achieve vaccine sovereignty through localization of mRNA vaccines.
The core of mRNA vaccine technology lies in mRNA and the lipid nanoparticles (LNP) that surround it. mRNA is genetic material containing information to synthesize proteins, and the principle of mRNA vaccines is to synthesize proteins that induce an immune response against target viruses using this mRNA. However, since mRNA itself is an unstable substance, encapsulation with LNP is essential for stable delivery. To date, the domestic industrial environment is considered weak in large-scale LNP manufacturing processes, resulting in a lack of a domestic manufacturing base for mRNA vaccines.
Inventage Lab is conducting joint research with ST Pharm, which is carrying out clinical trials of domestically produced mRNA vaccines, to commercialize the LNP platform. At the same time, its own process development division is directly conducting formulation research and process studies on mRNA-LNP. This has been evaluated as a stepping stone to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's goal of securing a domestic mRNA vaccine platform, leading to the selection for this project.
Kim Juhee, CEO of Inventage Lab, said, "I feel a heavy responsibility to be selected for an important research and development (R&D) project that aligns with the nation's strategic goals," adding, "We will do our best to secure an early foundation for team play with various bio companies through securing competitiveness in manufacturing platforms."
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