Samsung Biologics

Samsung Biologics Co., Ltd. is a global contract development and manufacturing organization headquartered in Songdo, Incheon, South Korea. The biotech division of Samsung Group, its core services range from late discovery to large-scale commercial manufacturing. The company focuses on monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, and mRNA vaccines.
The company has partnered with pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Founded in 2011, Samsung Biologics built four manufacturing plants with a capacity of more than 600,000 liters, from 2011 to 2023. In 2023, Samsung Biologics began construction of a fifth plant in Incheon, South Korea. The construction of Plant 5 is over 96% complete. The preliminary operational preparations have been completed, and full-scale operations are set to begin in April, with a gradual increase in facility utilization.[1]Once complete, the company’s five core facilities will hold up to 784,000 liters of biomanufacturing capacity.
Since 2020, Samsung Biologics has expanded its United States operations, opening offices in New Jersey and San Francisco to more closely support U.S. biopharmaceutical companies across both coasts.
As of June 2024, Samsung Biologics' CEO John Rim reported active partnerships with 16 of the top 20 largest biopharmaceutical companies. This includes early deals with Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2013, through to large partnerships during and after the pandemic. In 2020, GSK and Samsung Biologics signed the first of two major agreements: a $231 million, eight-year deal to manufacture biological therapies, including the lupus drug Benlysta. Two years later, a second $296 million deal was signed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Samsung Biologics partnered with Moderna for fill-finish, packaging and labeling of its mRNA vaccine, Spikevax. The company was also contracted to manufacture Eli Lilly's COVID-19 antibody therapeutic and AstraZeneca's long-acting antibody therapeutic as part of a larger multi-product deal.
In June 2023, Samsung Biologics entered a partnership with Pfizer for the commercial manufacturing of Pfizer’s multi-product biosimilars portfolio in a deal worth $411 million. A month later, Samsung Biologics entered two deals with Pfizer worth a combined $897 million to produce biosimilar products ranging from oncology and inflammation to immunotherapy at its Plant 4.
Along with Big pharma partnerships, the company has engaged with smaller development-stage companies. In 2023, Samsung Biologics announced a multi-year agreement with European venture capital firm Kurma Partners to support its portfolio companies through development, manufacturing, and de-risking services. In February 2024, Samsung Biologics announced a partnership agreement with LigaChem (formerly LegoChem) Biosciences to provide antibody development and drug substance manufacturing services to support LigaChem's antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) pipeline.
Samsung Biologics signed a 1.7 trillion won ($1.2 billion) deal with an unnamed Asian pharmaceutical company to provide contract manufacturing organization services, the largest contract secured in the company's history.
In 2012, it established Samsung Bioepis, a biosimilar medicine developer, as a joint venture with Biogen. The company acquired full ownership of Samsung Bioepis in 2022 by purchasing all remaining shares from Biogen for $2.3 billion.
In 2021, the Samsung Life Science Fund was created through a joint partnership between Samsung Biologics, Samsung Bioepis, and Samsung C&T. The fund, managed by Samsung Ventures, aims to foster the growth of next-generation technologies, such as gene therapies and ADCs.
Samsung Bioepis’s biosimilar product Opuviz has been approved by the European Commission, according to the Korean biosimilar developer on Nov. 2024.
Samsung Biologics has developed a range of proprietary technologies for biologics development. This includes S-CHOice, a cell line expression technology introduced in 2020. In 2022, Samsung Biologics launched S-DUAL, a bispecific antibody platform, and its DEVELOPICK platform, a service that selects candidate materials for new drugs.
Samsung Biologics published its first annual sustainability report in June 2021. It was added to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index later that year.
Samsung Biologics was awarded the Sustainable Market Initiative's 2022 Terra Carta Seal, which recognizes global companies driving innovation and action towards the creation of genuinely sustainable markets.
In 2023, Samsung Biologics received both a leadership A- score from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and an EcoVadis Platinum Sustainability Rating, placing the company in the top one percent of over 100,000 companies assessed by EcoVadis.
As of 30 June 2023.