Record High Sales
In 2015, Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co. (Hanmi Pharm), the largest South Korean pharmaceutical company, achieved the largest sales since its foundation, the company announced on Thursday.
Last year’s sales were estimated at 1.37 trillion won (US$1.15 billion), up 73 percent from the previous year. Operating income increased to 211.8 billion won from 34.5 billion won year-on-year, with net profit estimated at 162 billion won.
The remarkable feat was possible thanks to a series of mega licensing deals and improved performance at its Chinese subsidiary Beijing Hanmi Pharmaceutical. The latter achieved a cumulative growth of 18.5 percent compared to the previous year, posting 30.5 billion won and 27.1 billion won in operating profit and net profit, respectively.
Last year, Hanmi Pharmaceutical secured six licensing deals with global pharmaceutical giants like Sanofi and Janssen, and collaboration projects that are altogether worth 7.6 trillion won.
In November last year, Hanmi signed a license agreement with global drugmaker Janssen Pharmaceutical to develop a new diabetes-obesity drug, valued at US$915 million.
The breakthrough came in the form of a landmark licensing contract with Sanofi, which was worth 3.9 billion euros. It was a contract to develop diabetes treatments, which also marks the largest licensing deal in the history of the South Korean pharmaceutical industry.
The Korean drug maker also struck deals with ZAI Lab Limited of China and Boehringer Ingelheim of Germany on licensing its pipeline products and collaborative research on early treatments for lung cancer and diabetes.
Hanmi Pharmaceutical noted that the company spent 187 billion won on research and development last year, up 23 percent from a year earlier.