SK bioscience announced on the 30th that its influenza vaccine, ‘SKYCellflu®,´ received the government’s approval for shipment, which was the final step before sales to the market.

The shipment was initiated from L HOUSE, the company´s vaccine plant in Andong, Gyeongbuk Province. Republic of Korea.

SK bioscience will supply 5 million doses of the influenza vaccine domestically from the end of this year through early next year and will start shipping to hospitals nationwide from next month.

SKYCellflu is the only cell culture-based influenza vaccine in South Korea and is produced in an incubator, requiring no administration of antibiotics or preservatives.

Recently, a series of domestic and foreign studies announced that cell culture-based influenza vaccines provide greater efficacy since virus mutations are less likely to occur in the cell-culture process than in vaccines conventionally produced from fertile chicken eggs.

According to data that analyzed the relative effects of influenza vaccines in the 2017-2018 season by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the cell culture-based quadrivalent influenza vaccines showed 11% higher preventive effect than the quadrivalent egg-based influenza vaccines.

In a study conducted by SK bioscience, the influenza virus cultured in cell production for SKYCellflu® was less likely to mutate than those conventionally produced in fertile chicken eggs.

SK bioscience conducted 15 subcultures (a culturing method involving the transfer to a new culture dish for continued cell proliferation) to compare fertile chicken eggs and SKYCellflu production cells. The results showed that 3 mutations were found in the fertile chicken eggs, but no mutations were detected in SKYCellflu production cells. SK bioscience´s research results were officially announced in June at the 2019 Korean Interscience Working Group on Influenza Symposium (KIWI).

Based on these advantages, SK bioscience exported its cell culture production technology for SKYCellflu® to a global vaccine company in February last year. In April this year, the company received the World Health Organization’s first Pre-qualification (WHO PQ) certification for a cell culture-based influenza vaccine.

Sangkyun Lee, Head of L HOUSE said, "We have completed all preparations to supply the product to the market ahead of the influenza vaccination season. We will increase our competitive edge in the market based on the globally recognized cell-culture technology.”