Samba, AZ, and 457.1 Billion CMO... Surpassed Last Year's Order Amount in 8 Months

AZ and $350 Million Contract Amendment
Cumulative Orders This Year Reach $1.08 Billion
Surpassing Last Year's $1.02 Billion in 8 Months

Incheon Songdo Samsung Biologics Plant 3 Exterior View

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] Samsung Biologics has signaled a positive outlook by achieving $1.079 billion (approximately 1.2772 trillion KRW) in orders this year, surpassing last year's order amount.

Samsung Biologics announced on the 12th that it signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) for a $350.97 million (approximately 457.1 billion KRW) contract for contract manufacturing organization (CMO) services with AstraZeneca (AZ) on the 11th. This contract is a revised agreement expanding the scale of the CMO contract signed in May last year. Samsung Biologics explained, "The contract amount at that time did not meet the disclosure criteria, so it was not disclosed," and added, "Due to increased demand from the client, this revised contract was signed." Accordingly, this contract performance is included in this year's order results.

Although it is still at the LOI stage, if the actual main contract is signed, Samsung Biologics' cumulative orders for this year are expected to reach $1.079 billion, surpassing last year's order amount of $1.024 billion (approximately 1.1602 trillion KRW) in just eight months. Earlier, in February and March, the company succeeded in additional orders worth $104 million through volume changes in existing contracts with GSK, followed by contracts worth $92.04 million with Eli Lilly in March and $124.1 million with a European pharmaceutical company in April, cumulatively achieving this performance.

In June, Samsung Biologics signed its first-ever CMO contract worth $81 million with Novartis, a global big pharma ranked 5th worldwide by last year's sales, securing more than half of the top 10 global big pharma companies as clients. According to GlobalData, last year's big pharma sales rankings were Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Pfizer, Roche, AbbVie, Novartis, Bayer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), and Sanofi. Samsung Biologics had existing partnerships with J&J, Roche, Merck, GSK, and BMS, and has now succeeded in securing Novartis as a client as well.

Samsung Biologics has continued its active order acquisition by signing additional contracts last month, including a $172.39 million contract with Merck (MSD) in the U.S. and an $81.26 million contract increase with Cilag GmbH International, a J&J affiliate based in Switzerland.