The city of Gwangju, South Korea, is set to develop technology that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to predict variability in vaccine production processes and manage quality in real-time.
On September 10, Gwangju announced that its project, titled 'Development of AI-Based Control of Vaccine Manufacturing Variability and Intelligent Quality Management System,' led by GC Pharma, has been selected for the Ministry of Trade's 2026 Biohealth R&D program, securing 5 billion won (approximately $4.2 million) in national funding.
This initiative, part of the national advanced strategic industry support for bio-specialized zones, will see a total investment of 7.6 billion won (about $6.4 million), spanning from this year until 2030.
GC Pharma will lead the project, collaborating with Mokpo National University, Daegu Catholic University, and the Jeonnam Bio Promotion Agency as research partners.
The core objective is to develop technology that analyzes and predicts variations in the vaccine manufacturing process using AI, leveraging the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) production base at GC Pharma's facility in Hwaseong, which specializes in messenger RNA (mRNA) and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) pharmaceuticals.
This will enable the identification of changes in the manufacturing process in advance and establish an intelligent quality management system to oversee vaccine quality in real-time.
Each institution has defined roles in the project. GC Pharma will provide manufacturing data from the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to the finished product (FP) stages and validate process reproducibility through pilot and GMP-scale production.
Mokpo National University and Daegu Catholic University will gather data on changes in manufacturing conditions to train and validate the AI model. The Jeonnam Bio Promotion Agency will secure manufacturing and analytical data necessary for building a purification process prediction model.
This research is noteworthy for its potential to enhance the efficiency of existing production processes and quality management by integrating manufacturing data accumulated in actual vaccine production with AI technology.
Seo Hyung-bin, Director of the Strategic Industry Bureau of Gwangju, stated, "The selection of this project is expected to expand the foundation for developing AI-based biopharmaceutical manufacturing technology in the Hwaseong bio-specialized zone. We will secure technological competitiveness in response to the AI transition and support the growth of related industries."
Gwangju plans to link this project with medical, research, and demonstration institutions concentrated in the Hwaseong bio-specialized zone. The area is home to various bio-related infrastructures, including Chonnam National University Hospital, the National Immunotherapy Innovation Center, the Vaccine Safety Technology Support Center, the Microbial Demonstration Support Center, KTR Healthcare Research Institute, and the WHO Global Bio Campus.
Additionally, Gwangju is pursuing several bio-related R&D and industrialization projects, including 30 billion won for next-generation cancer immunotherapy technology development, 43 billion won for mRNA vaccine demonstration support, 39.7 billion won for establishing a bio-health convergence knowledge industry center, 44 billion won for developing peptide advanced new drug technology platforms, and 3.8 billion won for bio scale-up projects.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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