Peptron to boost long-acting drug production 10-fold with new factory, investing ₩65 billion.
Peptron, a Korean biotech company, said last Friday that it will invest 65 billion won (£37 million) to build a new manufacturing plant for peptide-based long-acting pharmaceuticals.
The new facility, which will have the capacity to produce up to 10 million vials per year, will be constructed on 5,000 square meters of unused land at the company’s Osong Bio Park facility in the Osong Advanced Medical Complex in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.
Peptron said this strategic investment is aimed at establishing a stable production base to meet the growing global demand for peptide-based long-acting drugs and to ensure the company's future growth.
Once completed, the new plant will boost Peptron’s production capacity to 10 times that of its current Osong Bio Park plant, which has been certified as an E.U. good manufacturing practice (GMP) qualified person (QP) by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) since its launch in 2018.
Peptron plans to complete the new plant by June 2026. The investment will be allocated as follows: 900 million won for design completion by the first half of 2025, 19.6 billion won for construction, and 44.5 billion won for GMP production facilities, with the construction and facility investments occurring from the first half of 2025 to the first half of 2026.
Choi Ho-il, CEO of Peptron, commented on the recent announcement of a 120 billion won rights offering and the new plant investment, stating, “We chose a rights offering because we are confident in our company’s vision and growth. It is the right time for Peptron to build a new facility to develop large-scale production capabilities for global supply and future technology transfers. This investment is also essential to meet the increasing demand for clinical drugs, fueled by strong interest from global pharmaceutical companies in Peptron’s leading pipeline.”
Peptron has developed SmartDepot, a proprietary technology for designing and manufacturing long-acting drug products, which is "essential for successful peptide medicines," the company said.
SmartDepot allows for less frequent dosing of peptide drugs, which traditionally require frequent injections due to their short half-life. By using biodegradable poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) copolymer (PLGA) microspheres as a drug delivery system, the technology extends the drug's release over one month, three months, or six months, depending on the formulation.
Based on this technology, Peptron is advancing PT403-404, a candidate treatment for diabetes and obesity. This long-acting sustained-release formulation, based on semaglutide and the GLP-1/GIP dual receptor, offers at least four times the duration of action compared to existing weekly injectable products while maintaining the effectiveness of semaglutide, Peptron said.
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