Towards Triple Top
Samsung Biologics, which is in charge of the Samsung Group’s biotech business as one of its future growth drivers, held a groundbreaking ceremony for its third plant on Dec. 21 and announced that it would become the global leader in terms of production capacity, sales and operating profits in or before 2020.
“We have been in this industry for only five years, but we will create a miracle in the field of biomedicine like Samsung Electronics did in the semiconductor industry,” said Samsung Biologics president Kim Tae-han. His confident remarks are based on the excellent quality of its products. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States inspected Samsung Biologics’ one-year-old manufacturing facilities located in Songdo, Incheon City last month and said that the facilities were free from any defects.
At the ceremony, the company declared that it would reach at least 500 billion won in operating profits and at least one trillion won in sales in 2025, the first year when the third plant is to be operated at full capacity. Samsung Biologics is planning to attain such a high profit ratio by means of efficient investment. Specifically, it is looking to make use of the other Samsung Group subsidiaries’ efficiency expertise to more than halve biomedicine production costs. At present, BMS is working on a 90,000-liter plant in Ireland at an investment of US$900 million. Meanwhile, Samsung Biologics is planning to have a production capacity of 180,000 liters by investing 850 billion won when it comes to its new factory.
In addition, the new plant can remain in operation around the clock unlike the other two that should be repaired and maintained every other year or every third year. According to the company, this means that the production capacity of the third plant is 30,000 liters more than the second one’s 150,000 liters on the face of it, but is actually 150 percent of the second plant’s capacity.
Where would It be Listed?
In the meantime, Samsung Biologics is currently being careful about its IPO. “We are looking to raise funds by IPO instead of capital increases as far as the third factory is concerned, but nothing can be said for sure as of now,” it explained. Concerning this issue, the Korea Exchange recently mentioned that Samsung Biologics should go public in the Korean stock market because it is one of the companies representative of Korea and its IPO abroad could lead to the outflow of national wealth.
Some industry experts are betting on the NASDAQ though. “Samsung Biologics is likely to be merged with Samsung BioEpis in the end, and things will be much easier if the two are on the same stock exchange,” one of them pointed out. Samsung BioEpis is scheduled to be listed on the NASDAQ in the first half of next year.