Biotech Boom: Samsung Biologics

Most people know Samsung as one of the world’s largest producers of electronic devices. But there’s so much more to the South Korean multinational conglomerate than mobile phones and televisions.

Headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, the famed chaebol comprises numerous affiliated businesses that span a variety of industries from financial services to shipbuilding, chemicals and even biotech.

Looking for a new growth engine, the Samsung Group explored the biotech space, thinking that if the past 40 years was the era of the IT industry, then the next 40 years would likely be led by the evolution of the healthcare sector, specifically biotech.

So roughly a decade ago, with only 30 young engineers and businesspeople in the team and a bright idea, Samsung Biologics set out to make a name for itself in the industry, becoming a current Good Manufacturing Practices contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) for the global biopharmaceutical industry.

By focusing on the manufacturing side of the business versus the discovery research business side, Samsung Biologics was able to use the Group’s strength as a leader in the semiconductor and protector industry to get a leg-up on the competition.

Building its own success virtually from scratch, the company hired new employees and built all of its facilities with its own engineering.

And it paid off – today, Samsung Biologics is an award-winning partner of choice uniquely able to provide seamless offerings of development, manufacturing and laboratory testing services at every stage for biopharmaceutical products, all while meeting the evolving needs of the global healthcare industry.

To say its growth has been substantial would be an understatement. Samsung Biologics currently boasts a team of roughly 3,000 employees, and its CMO business has reached the number one position globally in scale, quality compliance, cost competitiveness and future potential growth.

Its recent expansion has also grown the scope of the business to now include a contract development service and contract research service.

For its short history, Samsung Biologics has amassed success after success, but getting to the top hasn’t been an easy climb. While the industry has the potential for strong growth and a high margin for profitability, it’s also full of stringent rules and requirements.

And for good reason – injecting a subpar drug into a patient could be fatal. To provide peace of mind to its suppliers, Samsung Biologics attained the ISO 22301 certification – the international standard for business continuity management – for additional business operations, demonstrating its unwavering commitment to ensuring client satisfaction and operational excellence.

Obtaining this certification is a rigorous endeavour and achieving a certification of this calibre means the company has the robust ability to continuously prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from unexpected and disruptive incidents, such as COVID-19.

Even with global supply chains broken due to the pandemic, the company has been able to keep 100% of its supply responsibility to clients who rely on it to provide a stable flow of valuable medicines for patients.

While that’s good news in and of itself, business-wise, it gets even better. Thanks to this success, the big pharmaceuticals have taken notice and business is booming. The innovative company is continuing to attract new clients and its share price is jumping.

Looking to the future, Samsung Biologics is exploring the possibility of mergers and acquisitions. But the company won’t just buy a new business to save time and cost – it must provide significant value and add synergy to the current business.

Other than M&A as a growth engine, the company is inspired to improve and grow by building more facilities and improving its capabilities. The Samsung Biologics of the future will consolidate client services from testing down to packaging so it can meet all of its clients’ needs.

Of course, while Samsung Biologics exists to make a profit, more importantly and above all else, it wants to help others. The company looks to grow the entire global economy, and develop and manufacture better-quality medicines for its global patients.

It wants to help people, not only by improving the health of each individual, but also by improving their overall quality of life.

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