Weekly Asia Highlights- South Korea and Australia

Samsung Biologics Building the Fourth Plant for Growing Demand

On August 11, 2020, Samsung Biologics announced its plans to build a fourth pharmaceutical plant in Incheon, South Korea, within this year. The total investment is expected to be over 2 trillion Korean won (equivalent to $2 billion), and the plant may be as large as its other three facilities combined, as the CDMO said.

The new plant will cover 256 million square feet and add 256KL of capacity, for a total capacity at the four facilities of 620KL. As part of its long-term strategy to meet the fast-rising demands of contract drug manufacturing, this super plant is scheduled to commence manufacturing in the second half of 2022.

Related Article: Samsung Biologics Inks CDO Contract with PharmAbcine to Develop Novel Drug

QBiotics Announces Collaboration with MSD Targeting Unresectable Melanoma

On August 13, 2020, QBiotics, an Australian company developing anticancer and wound healing pharmaceuticals, announced an agreement with MSD (trade name of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA) to investigate tigilanol tiglate combination with Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for unresectable melanoma treatment.

Tigilanol tiglate is a small molecule administered by intratumoral injection for solid tumors. Melanoma is the second indication developed for tigilanol tiglate, based on the Company’s ongoing Phase I/II study in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) which commenced in December 2019. Phase I/II study follows the phase I data that shows a 27% response rate of monotherapy, including an 18% complete response with full tumor elimination for several solid tumor types.

Related Article: ASCO 2020: Keytruda Shines as New Quality of Care in Treating metastatic Colorectal Cancer

References

1. https://samsungbiologics.com/front/en/mediaCenter/pressReleasesView.do?boardSeq=781&schBoardCtgryCcd=&schString=&schBoardYear=&boardDtm=1597071600000&page=1
2. https://biotechdispatch.com.au/news/csiro-launches-new-long-term-science-mission

By Vicky Su
Editor: Sherry Hsiao

Author

Sherry Hsiao