When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the medical industry learned the value of time. While companies rushed to develop and research vaccines and treatments for the disease, they had to find ways to maintain quality, while reducing time to market. It became evident that all of the companies, including contract manufacturing and development organizations (CDMOs) had to search for new ways to develop, produce, manufacture, and distribute medicines, treatments, and vaccines.
Companies like Samsung Biologics engaged in initiatives to develop synchronicity with other biopharmaceutical businesses to assist them in their pursuit of more medical innovation. CDMOs like Samsung Biologics gave researchers and developers the quality manufacturing and distribution they needed..
In the last year alone, Samsung Biologics has introduced several new processes and technologies that have added an incredible amount of value, not only to the company but also to the industry at large. Samsung Biologics has also received a fantastic return on investment from those innovations in the last nine months, as can be seen by their record-breaking third-quarter report, released at the end of October.
The company’s revenue climbed by 64 percent in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the same period the previous year, reaching 450.7 billion won. All three of the operational factories were functioning at about full capacity, which resulted in this income. Furthermore, the operational profit increased by 196 percent over the previous year to reach 167.4 billion won. The net profit climbed by almost half to 131.8 billion won, a significant gain. The rapid turnaround of COVID-19 treatments, as well as higher overall usage, helped to boost the operating margin to 37 percent in the third quarter.
New BioPharma Manufacturing Programs and Technologies for Samsung Biologics
The global CDMO Samsung Biologics has sped up some projects and innovations and introduced others in 2021. The company plans on finishing its fourth plant, the “Super Plant,” earlier in 2023 than originally expected. Once this facility is finished, Samsung Biologics’ production capacity will be increased by 70 percent. It will also offer 2.38 million square feet of floor space and 256,000 liters of capacity that double the company’s overall capacity to 620,000 liters.
CDO labs, quality control (QC) labs, and cold freezer storage will also be available within the facility. In the handling and storage of mRNA vaccines, which must be kept at certain temperatures throughout their manufacturing, these storage alternatives will be quite beneficial.
Furthermore, the company added a new platform to assist its partners. “We are very pleased to showcase our innovative CDO service platform, S-CellerateTM, at BPI 2021,” said John Rim, CEO of Samsung Biologics. “By leveraging this proprietary drug development platform, our teams of experts will jointly provide seamless one-stop services to our clients, offering enhanced solutions that can help reduce both cost and time, catering to their specific needs.”
A drug development service platform introduced at the BioProcess International Conference, S-Cellerate™ helps speed up the process of creating and commercializing monoclonal antibodies. S-Cellerate is used in conjunction with an expedited CDO schedule to an Investigational New Drug (IND) application and a commercialization strategy so that a product may reach the Biologics License Applications stage more quickly (BLA).
More Benefits from Samsung Biologics’ Quality Efforts in the Field
Employees know best how their company works. Samsung Biologics employees can speak to their effective operating procedures and practices. Samsung Biologics’ Seahee Kim, Director of Cell Line Development, CDO R&D, noted that the company had been able to maximize time and effort in an interview, saying, “We offer a fully integrated solution to take our clients through the complete drug development lifecycle and into commercial manufacturing.” She also spoke about how well the company had developed its project management, which made projects take significantly less time. “With extensive expertise and streamlined project management, we ensure flexibility and full scalability to enable the drugs to reach the market successfully within an expedited timeline. Our innovative technology and equipment also allow for more efficient screening and optimization, which saves us significant time at each step of the process,” said Kim.
Furthermore, she discussed the company’s efforts to expedite CDMO services for COVID-19 vaccines. She talked about future plans when it came to working with mRNA vaccines: “Our extended manufacturing capability, which includes mRNA DP and soon DS, will enable us to help clients access our expertise and take advantage of our quality operations by sharing the modality-specific insights and critical success factors during the development journey. Given mRNA’s unique cell-free synthetic process, this could significantly save time in development and manufacturing.”
Other recent innovations include the use of digitization to speed up certain processes. The “Live Virtual Tour” technology was introduced as part of the company’s new procedure in January 2020. Virtual tours and inspections were made possible thanks to this new technology, which enabled the firm to give both high-definition video footage as well as dependable internet connections. Inspectors were able to view what they needed to see to approve the procedure while keeping the medication production facilities sanitary.