SK Chemicals, AZ mark first commercial production of diabetes drugs

South Korea's SK Chemicals has joined forces with global pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca to initiate commercial production of a chemical drug for diabetes treatment.

AstraZeneca Korea announced on Monday that they held a commemorative event on June 16 at SK ECO Hub in Pangyo near Seoul, celebrating the successful start of commercial production for the diabetes drug in collaboration with SK Chemicals.

The first batch of the commercial product was manufactured at SK Chemicals' factory in Cheongju on the same day.

The newly developed drug combines AstraZeneca's diabetes treatment medication, Forxiga (active ingredient: dapagliflozin), with Sitagliptin, a diabetes treatment ingredient belonging to the DPP-4 inhibitor class.

In an agreement forged in early 2020, SK Chemicals and AstraZeneca collaborated on the development, production and global commercialization of the diabetes drug. AstraZeneca serves as the license holder responsible for domestic and worldwide commercialization, while SK Chemicals takes charge of product manufacturing and supply.

To facilitate the development of the drug, AstraZeneca has been providing SK Chemicals with raw pharmaceutical materials and investing in research and development expenses. Meanwhile, SK Chemicals has been conducting research and development activities alongside domestic clinical trials.

In 2018, AstraZeneca Korea established a long-term partnership with SK Biotech, utilizing raw pharmaceutical materials produced at SK Biotech's Ireland factory to manufacture diabetes treatment drugs. Currently, the partnership supplies diabetes treatment drugs to over 3 million patients in 98 countries.

Additionally, AstraZeneca has a partnership with Samsung Biologics to domestically produce Evusheld to prevent COVID-19 and the anticancer drug Imfinzi (durvalumab).

Write to Ji-Hyun Lee at bluesky@hankyung.com