Apr
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Samsung BioLogics is moving fast with some ambitious plans to start marketing biosmilars at a deep discount while striking more development deals like the one it has with Biogen Idec ($BIIB) and ramping up its own work on novel biologics. And it's betting that its global rep in the electronics market and construction industry will help make the conglomerate a leading contender in the biopharma business.
Samsung, better known for flat screen TV sets than therapeutics, tells the Financial Times that it will put the finishing touches to its manufacturing site outside of Seoul by June, with plans to have global regulatory sanctions in place by the end of this year. That would set the stage for Samsung and its partner Biogen Idec to have a slate of biosimilars ready to market in 2015, and it plans to offer generic antibodies at half the current price they're available.
"Biopharmaceutical companies are good for sales, and biotech companies for innovation, but neither is good for manufacturing," Tae-Han Kim, the president of Samsung BioLogics, tells the Financial Times. "It is in Samsung's DNA to produce products at low prices while meeting legal and industry requirements. The price of monoclonal antibodies is very expensive and not affordable to all patients. That is a heavy burden on governments and [healthcare] payers."
The article doesn't make clear exactly where Samsung will offer deep discounts. But for the U.S. market, analysts have been projecting far more modest discounts of about 10% to 20%. A 50% discount would represent a much greater challenge to drugmakers.
The FT also just drops word of Samsung's plans to develop new therapies at the end of the story, with no explanation of what it plans to focus on.
- here's the article from the Financial Times
Related Articles:
Biogen Idec signs up with Samsung on $300 million biosimilars venture
Multinationals eager to jump into the multibillion-dollar biosimilar business
Dec
06
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Biogen Idec CEO George Scangos (photo) has made good on his vow to hammer out a major joint venture on biosimilars. The biotech has announced it is joining forces with South Korean conglomerate Samsung, biting off $45 million of a $300 million investment to ramp up a new operation to develop, manufacture and market biosimilars--one of the hottest areas in biopharma for a select group of players with the money needed to play the game.
Biogen ($BIIB) will go to work with Samsung Biologics, a newly minted development and manufacturing group forged by the Korean conglomerate and CRO Quintiles. Samsung officials initially talked up plans to develop a biosimilar of Rituxan, a blockbuster treatment developed in partnership between Biogen and Genentech, though Biogen went to some pains this morning to make clear that their work with Samsung would not involve Rituxan or any of Biogen's therapies. Samsung has laid out plans to invest close to $2 billion in the biosimilar business in expectation of developing a new subsidiary that can earn roughly that amount annually in about a decade. "We are taking a significant step toward becoming a major player in the biopharmaceutical industry and investing in an important growth engine for our company," Samsung Biologics CEO Tae-han Kim said in the statement.
Scangos has made no secret of his own interest in biosimilars. He told Reuters last May he thought a follow-on biologics business could gin more than a billion dollars a year in revenue, adding that the right partner could shoulder sales and marketing while Biogen concentrated its efforts on the manufacturing end of the deal.
"The manufacturing facilities have costs to run them, so the more products you run through them, the more efficient they are," he told the news wire service. "To set ourselves up commercially could be a big distraction. I'd like a partner to take over that."
"This relationship will allow us to leverage our world-class protein engineering and biologics manufacturing capabilities, while maintaining focus on our mission of discovering, developing and delivering innovative therapies for patients worldwide with neurodegenerative diseases, hemophilia and autoimmune disorders," Scangos said in a statement. "We are very impressed with Samsung's track record of leadership and excellence in all their businesses and are excited to be working with them."
- get the Biogen-Samsung release
- here's the Bloomberg report
Related Articles:
Multinationals eager to jump into the multibillion-dollar biosimilar business
Samsung, Quintiles team on $266M biosimilars deal