Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
Samsung Biologics opens development base in San Francisco
Samsung Biologics CEO Kim Tae-han speaks during an online press conference on the company's new R&D center in San Francisco, Thursday. Courtesy of Samsung Biologics
By Nam Hyun-woo
Drugmaker to expand network in Eastern U.S., Europe, China
By Nam Hyun-woo
Samsung Biologics has opened its first overseas base in San Francisco as part of the contract development and manufacturing organization's efforts to provide seamless services to more than 2,500 life science and biotechnology firms in the city.
Also at the conference, the company said it will set up additional R&D centers in Boston, Europe and China in the coming years, as part of its bid to provide better services to clients regardless of their location.
“With the opening of the San Francisco R&D center, we will be able to provide services as a local partner to our global biotech clients and help them to improve competitiveness in drug development,” Samsung Biologics CEO Kim Tae-han said during an online press conference, Thursday.
“We plan to continue our expansion into Boston, Europe and China. In 2020 and beyond, our next decade will be marked by global expansion. We are championing these expansions for super satisfaction of our clients in the novel biologics discovery, development and manufacturing.”
The San Francisco R&D center is located at the center of a biopharmaceutical cluster in South San Francisco, which is home to more than 2,500 biotech firms including Merck, Janssen, Genetech and Amgen. The center's primary service will be contract development.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company said it opened the center with the minimum facilities and workforces, but will expand the center's capacity step by step and will also hire local talents.
“Since the U.S. is a big country, it is hard for the San Francisco center to cover clients in the eastern U.S., given the distance and time difference,” Kim said. “We plan to open new contract development centers in the eastern U.S. next year, and also expand our network in Western Europe next year to meet demand in Switzerland, France, Germany and the U.K. After that, we are going to set up another contract development center in China.”
Through the expansion, Kim said Samsung Biologics seeks to become the “champion” of the contract development business by 2025.
“Samsung Biologics has become the champion of contract manufacturing in just nine years after it began operation,” Kim said. “Our contract development business started in 2018 and earned global recognition in its drug development speed, cost and quality in just two years. Through expanding contract development centers across the world, we will become the champion of contract development organizations by 2025.”
After it launched the contract development business, the company has won more than 60 orders from clients within two years, emerging as a major player in the global market. Of them, two drug candidates that Samsung Biologics developed under contract have won Investigational New Drug approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration this year.
Samsung Biologics is now the world's largest contract manufacturing organization in the world, with the capacity to produce 364,000 liters of biologic drugs a year. The company plans to complete its No. 4 plant, which can produce 256,000 liters of drugs, and its total production capacity will account for 30 percent of the entire global production capacity.
Along with the expansion, Kim said the company is also considering introducing facilities to produce gene and cell therapies. Samsung Biologics' contract manufacturing currently focuses on antibody treatments, thus the manufacturing of gene- and cell-based therapies is not available at the company. Due to this, the company was left out of talks on the contract manufacturing of some COVID-19 vaccines under development.
“We are considering various plans to enable a prompt response to vaccine demands, but it is too early to disclose detailed plans on new businesses,” Kim said.