Samsung Biologics set to join $1 billion sales club this year

[Photo provided by Samsung Biologics Co.]

South Korea’s Samsung Biologics is expected to join the $1 billion sales club less than a decade since founding.

The world’s largest CMO earned revenue of 789.5 billion won ($712 million) by September, exceeding its full-year sales last year. Its CMO order book stretched to 1.92 trillion won this year.

Its full-year revenue will easily top 1 trillion won, analysts said.

New orders came from Immunomedics, GSK and two unnamed Swiss pharmaceutical companies in the first half and Cilag, Lundbeck, CytoDyn, two unnamed U.S. firms, GSK, AstraZeneca, Checkpoint Therapeutics.

The company has been able to widen customer base from Asia to the U.S. and Europe, and its operating margin could near 30 percent with an estimated operating profit of 271.4 billion won for this year, according to market consensus.

Although at its ninth year, the company under Korea’s top conglomerate Samsung Group has become the world’s largest CMO in capacity. Two bioreactors are at full capacity and the third has begun activating, Grounds were broken lately for the fourth with an annual capacity of 256,000 liters, the world’s single largest biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility. In two years, the company’s footprint will reach 620,000 liters, responsible for a third of the world’s CMO market.

Shares of Samsung Biologics ended Wednesday 0.1 percent up at 803,000 won.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]