National Core Facility for Biopharmaceuticals

N3

Nucleic acid drugs and raw materials service platformNational Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, NHRI
Shih-Jen Liu , Investigator

After the global impact of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were developed and quickly received emergency use authorization (EUA) in less than a year and in a short period of time, their vaccines got approved for market. Due to the fast design-to-production speed, high flexibility, and similar processes in a product assembly line, nucleic acid drugs have successfully attracted the attention of various industries and become a trend of drug therapies. However, there has been frequent patent litigation among the major companies involved in mRNA technology since 2022, causing other companies that want to invest in the mRNA drug field has to face the difficulties with the key technology patents held by the major companies. In addition, the high cost of critical materials and the lack of drug formulation platforms have made it difficult for our academic researchers to keep up and to move forward. This project aims to establish and provide critical materials and service platforms for nucleic acid drugs in lab scale, including (1) self-produced raw materials, (2) production of mRNA, (3) lipid nanoparticles (LNP) encapsulation, and (4) customized services. Hopefully, through the establishment of the service platform, academic research on nucleic acid drugs in our country can be accelerated effectively, and further contribute positively to domestic companies that want to invest in the mRNA drug field, thereby constructing a nucleic acid drug industry chain in our country.

https://iv.nhri.edu.tw/zhtw/

Acknowledgment template：

The authors acknowledge the research collaboration and technical service for Nucleic Acid Drugs and Raw Materials Service Platform, Taiwan (NSTC 112-2740-B-400-004).