Sunflower Therapeutics Announces SK bioscience’s $2M SAFE Investment

By: Sunflower Therapeutics via Business Wire

July 25, 2024 at 08:05 AM EDT

Partnership will support the companies’ ongoing R&D collaboration

Sunflower Therapeutics, a public benefit corporation transforming global access to protein manufacturing capacity for diverse applications, today announced that SK bioscience, a global innovative vaccine and biotech company committed to promoting human health from prevention to cure, has participated in Sunflower’s simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), a flexible agreement providing future equity rights without immediate valuation, with a $2M subscription to solidify their support for the companies’ ongoing research and development R&D collaborations.

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The subscription builds on Sunflower and SK bioscience’s existing collaboration to develop an efficient manufacturing process for an accessible human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine using the alternative protein expression host Pichia pastoris. Through their partnership, SK bioscience is leveraging Sunflower’s expertise in the development of integrated biomanufacturing processes using alternative hosts in the development and manufacturing of accessible, clinically relevant vaccines for combatting public health crises such as HPV and cervical cancer.

“In this time where various infectious diseases threaten humanity, vaccine sovereignty is the key to protecting the safety of our people and enhancing national competition,” said Jaeyong Ahn, CEO of SK bioscience. “We are excited to deepen our relationship with Sunflower Therapeutics and make an impact on global health as we continue to develop efficacious, safe and cost-effective vaccines.”

Sunflower’s cutting-edge approach uses continuous fermentation, an entirely new way to make virus-like particles (VLPs) and has been proven to be five to ten times more effective in space-time yields for VLPs than fed-batch fermentation. Through the companies’ collaboration, Sunflower is evaluating the potential for cost-effective manufacturing in P. pastoris using Sunflower’s Daisy Petal^TMperfusion bioreactor system, a laboratory-scale, automated manufacturing system for the integrated production of purified protein bulk using microbes.

“Our accessible, cutting-edge protein manufacturing solutions are moving the needle by reimagining the biologic development process,” said Dr. Kerry R. Love, Founder, CEO and President of Sunflower Therapeutics. “We’re thrilled by SK bioscience’s expanded support and look forward to democratizing and supporting product development for vaccine producers across the globe with our next-generation manufacturing technologies, coupled with our thoughtful, resourceful services.”

To learn more, please visit sunflowertx.com.

About Sunflower Therapeutics

Sunflower Therapeutics, PBC is a unique biotech company with a mission to enable more medicines to reach patients worldwide. Our goal is to transform access to biologic medicines for patients worldwide by creating novel technologies for development and manufacturing with the whole global community in mind. Using our core technologies--an efficient host, data-driven methods for process development, and novel manufacturing facilities--our team aims to create efficient, fast and less costly cycles of development and production for many new innovative patient-focused products.

About SK bioscience

SK bioscience is an innovative vaccine and biotech company, committed to vaccine development and manufacturing to enable more equitable access to vaccines around the world. Leveraging strengths on cutting-edge technologies, SK bioscience has been dedicated to promoting human health from prevention to cure across the globe. With the cooperation of domestic and international governments, regulatory agencies, healthcare providers, doctors, and medical experts, all of the SK colleagues are passionately committed to providing high-quality vaccines to those who need them and better public healthcare solutions.