Samsung Biologics signs $81 mn CMO deal with Novartis

South Korea’s Samsung Biologics Co. has inked an $81 million contract manufacturing deal with Novartis, the world’s fifth-largest pharmaceutical company.

Samsung, the world’s top contract manufacturing organization by capacity, on Tuesday announced the transaction, its first CMO deal with Swiss drugmaker Novartis, although the South Korean supplier has yet to unveil further details such as what products it would produce.

“With the first contract with Novartis, we will maintain the partnership in the future,” said a Samsung official.

The deal raised Samsung’s total CMO contracts to $400 million so far in 2022 as it won such orders from global pharmaceutical majors including GSK plc., formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc., and Eli Lilly & Co. earlier this year. Last year, Samsung secured $1 billion in CMO deals.

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Samsung secured more than half of the global top 10 pharmaceutical makers such as Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Merck & Co. and Bristol Myers Squibb as customers for the contract manufacturing business. Samsung also has a similar deal with Gilead Sciences Inc. in the US.

The South Korean contract drugmaker has been mostly producing antibody treatments rather than the cell-gene therapy (CGT) so much in the spotlight recently. 

Samsung has recently set up facilities to produce the drug substance for the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based COVID-19 vaccines in its existing plant and supply GreenLight Biosciences with reagents for phase 1 clinical trials. The US biotechnology company has developed an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

Samsung plans to break ground for its fifth factory this year in the form of a multi-modal plant to produce various CGTs.

Write to Jae-Young Han at jyhan@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.