[Click eStock] Will SK Bioscience's 'Pause' End?

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] Samsung Securities maintained the target price of SK Bioscience at 190,000 KRW, emphasizing the need to closely watch the future contract scale of GBP510.

Samsung Securities lowered its earnings expectations for SK Bioscience in the first quarter of this year. The scheduled CDMO batch shipment of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine raw materials in Q1 was postponed to Q2 due to QA (quality inspection) delays, and the domestic distribution volume of the finished vaccine product in Q1 is expected to be 2 million doses. As a result, sales and operating profit were lowered by 79.8% and 90.1%, respectively. The expected Q1 sales are 83.4 billion KRW, and operating profit is 23.2 billion KRW.

However, the Novavax CDMO shipments are expected to normalize from Q2, and most of the domestic supply of the finished Novavax COVID-19 vaccine is anticipated to be delivered within the second half of this year. Therefore, the annual earnings estimates for this year were not adjusted.

In particular, SK Bioscience's self-developed COVID-19 vaccine GBP510 is expected to play an important role. Since Pfizer and Moderna's mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines dominate the market, expanding the market share of the fusion antigen-based GBP510 may be somewhat challenging. However, since the beginning of the year, safety data on fusion antigen vaccines have been accumulating due to the start of vaccinations with the fusion antigen-based Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, and after the launch of GBP510, vaccination preference for fusion antigen vaccines may increase compared to mRNA vaccines.

Geunhee Seo, a researcher at Samsung Securities, stated, "For GBP510, the Phase 3 clinical trial results and approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety are expected in Q2 this year, and in Q3 of the same year, contract scales with COVAX and other countries will be finalized in line with WHO approval."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.