Samsung Bioepis delays planned Nasdaq IPO

By Kim Yoo-chul

Samsung‘s biosimilar drug development affiliate has delayed its earlier-scheduled initial public offering (IPO) listing this year, officials directly involved with the matter told The Korea Times, Tuesday.

“Samsung Bioepis scrapped a plan for the company to be listing on the Nasdaq, which had been scheduled within the first half of this year,” one high-ranking official said.

The delay is also pushing Samsung Biologics, a mother firm of Samsung Bioepis, to delay its domestic listing. Bioepis is partly owned by Biologics.

“Samsung Bioepis will try again to help the company be traded in the United States, but no exact timing has been set,” another official said by telephone.

Last August, Samsung hired Goldman Sachs and Citigroup Global Market Securities as the lead managers for the U.S. listing. It also asked Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley to take part in the process.

The corporate value of Samsung Bioepis was said to be 10 trillion won. Samsung planned to source between 1.6 trillion won and 2 trillion won from the listing of its biosimilar unit.

“Goldman Sachs, Citi, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley withdrew from the Samsung Bioepis deal under requests by Samsung,” said the official.

The strategy shift comes after Samsung Bioepis recently received European Commission approval for Enbrel, its copy of a biotechnology arthritis drug.

Given Samsung’s decades-long manufacturing prowess, the approval is seen as providing momentum helping Samsung boost its presence in Europe.

Samsung Bioepis said the drug, known as Etanercept, will be sold in Europe by the U.S. biotechnology group Biogen and rolled out gradually across all 28 E.U. member states.

But the Samsung unit was brought to a court in Canada by U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Amgen for alleged patent infringement.

If Samsung is found to have infringed patents owned by Amgen, the world’s biggest bio company, then Samsung’s estimated asset value via Nasdaq listing could drop, said the officials.

According to the court filings, Brenzys, Samsung Bioepis’ biosimilar copy of Amgen’s blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis treatment trade named Enbrel, breached two patents owned by Amgen.

Samsung said it hired top legal attorneys for the legal issue.

“With the patent litigation issue, a possibility of U.S. rate increases was pushing Samsung Bioepis to put its U.S. listing plan on hold,” said the official, adding the Samsung unit had not been prepared well for its U.S. listing process.

Samsung Bioepis said its decision to delay the U.S. listing was due to steep falls in the stocks of major bio companies in the United States because of pressure of high valuation.