Samsung Biologics has landed a new biologics manufacturing contract worth $262 million with an unnamed European pharmaceutical company, according to a securities filing.
The deal, disclosed on Thursday, will run through the end of 2033, with confidentiality provisions around the client’s identity expected to lapse at the same time.
Samsung Bio said it would keep the client’s name under wraps “for reasons of business confidentiality,” though it noted that the end date of the discretion agreement “is subject to change.”
Production under the new contract will take place at Samsung Bio’s manufacturing campus in Songdo, South Korea, the company confirmed in an emailed fact sheet.
Secrecy around contract manufacturing clients is not unusual for Samsung Bio, which has announced multiple high-value deals with unnamed drugmakers in recent years, including a $1.3 billion contract with a U.S. pharma company almost a year ago.
With the latest agreement, Samsung Biologics’ cumulative contract value has surpassed $21.9 billion, reflecting continued strong demand for its manufacturing capacity from global biopharma clients.
The new contract arrives as Samsung Bio pursues what would be the largest acquisition ever by a Korean biopharmaceutical company, a full buyout of PolyPeptide Group AG.
Samsung Biologics launched an all-cash public tender offer in July to acquire 100% of the fully diluted share capital of PolyPeptide Group AG, a global CDMO specialising in peptide-based APIs.
The acquisition would hand Samsung Bio peptide manufacturing sites in India, France, Belgium, Sweden, and two facilities in California, significantly expanding its geographic footprint.
The move is designed to push Samsung Bio beyond antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates into the fast-growing peptide therapeutics market, including GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and obesity.
To fund the PolyPeptide takeover, Samsung Biologics announced a KRW 3 trillion rights offering in August, with KRW 2.71 trillion earmarked for the acquisition and approximately KRW 290 billion set aside for expansion of Bio Campus II.
Samsung Biologics currently operates 845,000 liters of manufacturing capacity across South Korea and the United States, including 785,000 liters at Songdo and 60,000 liters at its Rockville, Maryland facility.
The company has also secured land for a planned Bio Campus III, which is expected to support dedicated R&D and manufacturing programs for next-generation therapeutics.
Samsung Biologics said it continues to review “strategic investment opportunities to secure new modalities, overseas manufacturing sites and technologies as we seek to further strengthen our position as a global top-tier CDMO.”