Samsung Group’s Lee meets with global bio leaders for business expansion

Jay Y. Lee, executive chairman of Samsung Electronics Co. and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol meet with Moderna Inc. CEO Afeyan on April 25(local). [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Jay Y. Lee, executive chairman of Samsung Electronics Co., has met with the chiefs of global bio companies during his visit to the U.S. last week, underscoring Samsung Group’s vision of becoming a bio leader based on the successful experience of its chips business.

Samsung Electronics announced Sunday that Lee visited one of the world’s largest bio clusters in the U.S. East Coast and met with the leaders of big pharmaceutical companies and biotech incubators and accelerators.

“The starting point doesn’t matter,” Lee told Samsung’s sales staff in the U.S. “What matters eventually is bold and persistent challenges. Let’s continue our success in semiconductors and move toward biotech.”

Lee remained in the U.S. for business after joining the presidential visit to the U.S. as part of a business delegation member. He met with biotech leaders and discussed ways to strengthen Samsung Group’s competitiveness and ways to develop new business areas in the biotech industry.

Lee met with officials including Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. CEO Joaquin Duato, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. CEO Giovanni Caforio, and Flagship Pioneering Inc. CEO Noubar Afeyan.

Johnson & Johnson is a top-tier global pharmaceutical company with more than 140 years of history. Ranked third in the global pharmaceutical sector and sixth in the bio sector as of last year, the company has continued to introduce new technologies, such as robotic surgery and artificial intelligence (AI).

Johnson & Johnson is also one of the major customers of Samsung, continuing a partnership based on a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) agreement signed between the two companies in 2016.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) is a developer of treatments for oncology, hematology, immunology, and cardiovascular disease. It is known as one of the leading U.S. companies in the global pharmaceutical and biotech industry.

[Courtesy of Samsung Biologics]

Samsung was able to rapidly grow in that market following the company’s orders for Samsung Biologics Co. since its first order in 2013.

Caforio has been leading the company since 2015 after serving as chief sales officer and chief operating officer.

Flagship Financing is a global investment firm that has discovered and incubated a number of global biotech companies, including Moderna Inc.

Its CEO Afeyan is also a co-founder of Moderna and chair of the board of the biotech company. Moderna helped Korea overcome the Covid-19 pandemic by signing contracts with Samsung to manufacture messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines.

A biotech company can succeed only if it has both manufacturing technologies and R&D capabilities as fundamental bases, while building a reputation and reliable network for long-term cooperation. Neither of these are easy to acquire in a short period of time, which makes any entry into the market difficult.

Since its declaration of biotech and pharmaceuticals as a new business area for growth in 2010, Samsung has established Samsung Biologics in 2011 and Samsung Bioepis Co. in 2012. It has been aggressively expanding its investment into the industry, achieving the global No. 1 CDMO spot in biopharmaceuticals in a relatively short period of time.

Samsung Biologics established Samsung Bioepis in partnership with U.S. biotech company Biogen Inc. Known for developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”), the company has continued its partnership with Samsung even after it sold all of its stake in Samsung Bioepis to Samsung.

It is also still the main sales channel of three autoimmune disease drugs made by Samsung Bioepis for the European market.

Samsung also has a partnership with Organon & Co., formerly a part of the U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co Inc.

Organon is a global sales partner with Samsung that sells biosimilar drugs made by Samsung Bioepis in Europe and the U.S. It will launch Hadlima, an autoimmune disease drug, in July.