Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
BIO WEBINAR 'Samsung Biologics aims to offer speedy, timely drug development service'
Ahn Yong-ho, vice president and head of CDO business unit at Samsung Biologics, speaks during The Korea Times' Bio Webinar, March 26. Captured during the event
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Logo for Samsung Biologics
The outbreak of COVID-19 has provided Korea with the momentum to look back on how well the country has nurtured its biotechnology industry.
Some firms have responded swiftly to the market's need for reliable test kits to diagnose the novel virus and other companies have gone all-out to manufacture vaccines and treatments.
Taking the pandemic as a turning point, the country's biotechnology firms are readying to take the giant leap forward to compete against global players.
Specializing in the development and manufacturing of biopharmaceutical products for global pharmaceutical firms, Samsung Biologics is one of the local companies leading the country as a rising player in the biotechnology industry.
The company has also been working on expanding its business scope to develop its contract development organization (CDO) business, an end-to-end biopharmaceutical project running drug development procedures from laboratory research to clinical trials.
“Our specialties are providing a super-fast drug development process to customers. Our CDO business is able to provide a full scope of drug development services from the gene level to investigational new drug filing. It takes seven months,” Ahn Yong-ho, vice president and head of CDO business unit at Samsung Biologics, said during The Korea Times' Bio Webinar, March 26.
Sponsored by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the inaugural event was designed to focus on the biotechnology industry, which Korea is trying to foster as one of its core growth engines, following semiconductors, shipbuilding and batteries.
Prominent biotech firms here including Samsung Biologics, LG Chem, SK Bioscience and Celltrion have joined the online conference as co-sponsors.
The vice president said the global biopharmaceutical market is growing rapidly as the number of biological investigational new drug (IND) approvals has been increasing and the market value of therapeutic antibodies also has been increasing.
While the global biopharmaceutical market was estimated at $78 billion in 2006, the market grew to $278 billion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent, according to data from market researcher EvaluatePharma.
“When developing new drugs, a well-designed development strategy is necessary,” Ahn said stating the importance of chemistry, manufacturing and control (CMC).
“CMC is the one of key success factors for drug development. Fifty percent of first new drug applications filed between 2000 and 2012 were rejected, 11.3 percent of which were due to CMC issues. Also, 18.3 percent of resubmitted applications were delayed again due to the CMC issues, according to data by Clarivate Analytics.”
To offer higher productivity of biopharmaceutical drugs for its customer companies, Samsung also launched its own cell line expression technology S-CHOice last year. Cell lines act as “living” factories for biopharmaceutical drugs, determining the productivity of the drugs. Selecting a cell line is regarded as the first step of drug development and high-performing cell lines help developers to lower costs.
Its S-CHOice demonstrates improved titers by up to double industry average, with its yields exceeding 7 grams per liter for standard monoclonal antibodies. Also, it maintains high cell viability with over 90 percent 21 days after launching a fed-batch study, which is higher than the industry average of 14 days.
“By closely communicating with our customers, our CDO business is aimed at offering fast and tailored service. As we are able to provide fully integrated development and manufacturing service at a single site, our clients can save time, cost and effort,” Ahn said. “We also hope domestic biotech companies can compete against global players through cooperation with us.”