LG Chem launches new pharmaceutical plant
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An LG Chem employee produces medicine at the company’s new diagnostic reagent plant in Osong, North Chungcheong Province, Monday. / Courtesy of LG Chem
By Yoon Sung-won
LG Chem is boosting its biopharmaceutical business by expanding manufacturing capacity, the company said Monday.
The Seoul-based outfit recently completed construction of a new biopharmaceutical plant in Osong, North Chungcheong Province. The plant is dedicated to diagnostic reagents, and will allow the company to continue to increase output and diversify its product portfolio to target the growing preventive medicine market worldwide.
“Based on advanced technologies and our expanded manufacturing capacity, we will be able to stabilize our supply of convenient and varied products to clients,” LG Chem’s life science business head, Son Jee-woong, said.
LG Chem said the single-floor plant sits on 2,370 square meters of land and will start producing 12 types of biopharmaceutical products including immunodiagnostic agents, which are used to check for allergies and blood conditions. Diagnostic reagents can be applied to blood or hair to detect diseases or to determine a certain remedy’s effectiveness.
LG Chem broke ground on the plant in 2015 under the expectation that the global market for diagnostic reagents will grow rapidly given aging populations and the medical industry’s paradigm shift from treatment to prevention.
“With the new plant, we will be able to produce up to 19 million test units per year,” an LG Chem official said. “We have established a competitive foothold in the diagnostic reagents market here, which has so far been led by multinational enterprises.”
LG Chem started researching diagnostic reagents in 1986 and has churned out products at its labs in Daejeon since 1992. The company won a supply deal for the first diagnostic reagent it produced ― used to test immunity against hepatitis C ― and has provided it to blood banks since 1995.
The firm has since released diverse diagnostic reagents here. Its domestic market share is about 70 percent for tuberculosis diagnostic agent, respiratory virus diagnostic agents and allergy screening product sectors.