ST Pharm aims to lead oligonucleotide production by 2026

Kim Kyung-jin, CEO and president of ST Pharm, speaks at the company's booth during the CPHI Worldwide 2023 held in Barcelona on Tuesday. [SHIN HA-NEE]

BARCELONA, Spain — Bio-manufacturer ST Pharm is seeking to secure the world’s top-notch production capacity for oligonucleotide by 2026.

The contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) is currently one of the top three suppliers of oligonucleotide, which is used to produce nucleic acid therapeutics. With its second plant under construction, the company aims to ultimately become the largest oligonucleotide supplier worldwide.

“The goal is to take the top spot in nucleic acid drugs,” said Kim Kyung-jin, CEO and president of ST Pharm, during the CPHI Worldwide 2023 held in Barcelona.

For this year’s CPHI, the company’s primary focus is winning orders for its oligonucleotide plants, said Kim.

Nucleic acid therapeutics use RNA or DNA to modulate the expression of disease-related genes or the activity of proteins, mRNA vaccines being a prominent example. It is considered safer with extensive options for target selection, and is easy to mass-produce.

“As the capacities India and China have in synthetic drug substances are massive, we have been expanding our domain where a technological barrier to entry is higher, which is what initially motivated us to enter the nucleic acid drug market,” said Kim.

The ground for ST Pharm’s second plant was broken in September. The company aims to complete the construction by 2025 and begin operation in 2026.

As the CPHI Worldwide 2023 coincided with three other oligonucleotide-related conferences taking place in Europe, ST Pharm has ramped up sales activities with some 30 sales personnel deployed to attract more customers, according to the CEO.

During the CPHI Worldwide 2023, the world’s largest pharmaceutical trade show, ST Pharm had about 70 to 80 meetings with its existing and potential clients.

As major Korean CDMOs took the central stage at this year’s CPHI, Kim stressed that such a trend “is very significant for Korea’s bio-economy.”

“Just one company being strong is not enough — we need to push up the average, riding on an upward trend altogether,” said Kim.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]