Samsung Biologics opens the world's largest CDMO factory

South Korea’s Samsung Biologics Co.’s new biopharmaceuticals plant launched operations on Tuesday, a move expected to widen the gap between itself and other contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs).

Samsung has already poured 2 trillion won ($1.4 billion) into this fourth factory, built on its first bio campus in Songdo, Incheon, 40 km west of Seoul. The new facility has the world’s largest capacity in a single biopharma CDMO plant.

Looking ahead, the Samsung Group unit plans to spend another 7.5 trillion won over the next 10 years to build four more CDMO plants on a second campus in Songdo.

Such aggressive investment plans reflect the world’s largest memory chipmaker’s ambition to make biopharma CDMO manufacturing its second main strategic business after semiconductor chips.

The opening ceremony for the new plant was attended by Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee and other group senior executives.

The fourth plant's capacity is 240,000 liters a year, about three times the average 90,000 liters of its global rivals.

Samsung now has a total CDMO manufacturing capacity of 420,000 liters per year.

Driven by the parent group’s aggressive investments, Samsung’s biopharmaceuticals business has been growing rapidly. Its market cap has swelled sixfold to 57 trillion won since its stock market debut in 2016.

The four new plants to be built on the second bio campus will be completed by 2032, the company said.

The four new plants on the second campus will likely have a combined capacity of 1 million liters, much greater than the combined 420,000 liters of those on the first campus.

Samsung Biologics counts 12 of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies as its customers.

Write to Bae-Sung Soo and Jae-Young Han at baebae@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.