GreenLight Biosciences and Samsung Biologics announce collaboration to build capacity for messenger RNA Vaccine Manufacturing

GreenLight Biosciences, a biotechnology company dedicated to making ribonucleic acid (RNA) products affordable and accessible for human health and agriculture, and Environmental Impact Acquisition Corp, and Samsung Biologics, a leading global CDMO providing fully integrated end-to-end contract development and manufacturing services, announced a partnership agreement in which Samsung Biologics will manufacture GreenLight’s messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate at commercial scale.

The partnership aims to accelerate production of GreenLight’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate for Phase III clinical trials and, subject to regulatory approval, commercial sales. The collaboration with Samsung will leverage GreenLight’s existing manufacturing process, with technology transfer from GreenLight to Samsung starting immediately.

Both Samsung Biologics and GreenLight are committed to vaccine equity and envision a world capable of producing enough messenger RNA vaccine doses for billions of people a year. This supports GreenLight’s ambition to help vaccinate the world against COVID-19, as detailed in its Blueprint To Vaccinate The World published in March 2021. This vision aligns with calls by CEPI, and others for concrete actions to increase vaccine manufacturing capacity across the world, not just for COVID-19, but also for other infectious diseases reflecting the ongoing global health needs.

“We are delighted to partner with Samsung to manufacture messenger RNA for our Covid vaccine trial. There is an urgent need to develop vaccines for the whole world,” said GreenLight CEO Andrey Zarur. “Our vaccine trial will open the way to make vaccines that are available to everybody, not just citizens of developed countries.”

“We are delighted to partner with GreenLight to leverage our expertise in manufacturing a messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate to better serve patients in lower income countries,” said John Rim, CEO of Samsung Biologics. “This collaboration demonstrates a major milestone for Samsung Biologics as we will commence our expanded capabilities and operations to provide one-stop end-to-end messenger RNA production from Drug Substance (DS) to Aseptic Fill Finish (DP) to commercial release, all from a single site. At this time of urgent global demand, we will strive for seamless service across our biomanufacturing network to fight the COVID pandemic and in turn, help make progress towards Korea’s vaccine hub goal.”

Samsung Biologics has been proactive in accommodating client needs in the biopharma CDMO landscape, including its plans to add messenger RNA vaccine drug substance (DS) manufacturing capability to the current facility in Songdo, ready for cGMP operations within the earlier part of the year in 2022.