Samsung Biologics to go full throttle during Seollal holiday

Samsung Biologics’ Plant 3 (Samsung Biologics)

Samsung Biologics, the country's largest contract manufacturing company, will run its production lines at full throttle during the upcoming Lunar New Year's holiday to ensure timely delivery of pouring orders, industry sources said Tuesday.

An official from Samsung Biologics also noted the company has been operating 24/7, 365 days a year to meet its goals in regards to promised delivery times. Samsung Biologics also maintained its production level during the Chuseok holiday last year and will keep it for the upcoming holiday this month, the official said.

According to Samsung Biologics, it cannot halt factory operation due to its over-40-day cycle of cell culturing and purification processes.

Samsung Biologics’ manufacturing facilities are currently at 100 percent operation due to increasing orders from clients. In 2022 alone, Samsung Biologics signed 11 new contracts, amounting to 1.78 trillion won ($1.44 billion).

Included in the company’s clients are international pharmaceutical giants such as GSK, Janssen, Merck, Lilly and AstraZeneca.

Samsung Biologics said the company will deploy extra employees to ensure the safety of workers during the holiday. The company will also pay incentives to workers who work extra hours, it said.

Samsung Biologics also boasted that its Enterprise Quality Unified Information System, a system that records and manages documents and quality records in real time, will allow it to efficiently oversee the manufacturing efficiency.

Meanwhile, Samsung Biologics expects to secure increased production capacity by completing the construction of its fourth plant in the first half this year, which will add production capacity of 240,000 liters.

When completed, Samsung Biologics will have a total biomanufacturing capacity of 604,000 liters at the company’s first campus.

For the fourth plant, Samsung Biologics has already secured 11 products from eight clients. The company is under discussions with 26 clients for 34 different products.

By Shim Woo-hyun(ws@heraldcorp.com)