BMS expands Samsung deal
pharmafile | April 29, 2014 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | BMS, Roche, Samsung, UCSF, biologics, incheon
Bristol-Myers Squibb has expanded its biopharmaceutical manufacturing agreement with South Korea’s Samsung BioLogics.
Last year, Bristol-Myers Squibb signed a 10-year contract with Samsung for the manufacture of a single antibody cancer drug substance at its 69,000 sq. m. mammalian cell production plant at Songdo Incheon.
The companies have now said they will ‘increase the scope’ of the deal so that Samsung manufactures material for several of BMS’s biologic medicines – still unnamed – at Incheon.
As with the original deal, no financial terms have been disclosed.
“Biologic medicines that treat serious diseases are an integral part of BMS’s speciality care portfolio and R&D pipeline,” says Lou Schmukler, president, global manufacturing & supply, at BMS.
“The expanded relationship with Samsung will increase our biologics manufacturing capability and give us the flexibility to respond to increased demand in order to meet the global needs of patients,” Schmukler adds.
Tae-Han Kim, president and chief executive of Samsung BioLogics, says he is ‘delighted’ and calls it ‘another significant step’ for the firms.
For Samsung, which only started its move into biologics in 2010, the deal’s extension represents a serious vote of confidence: it builds on a similar deal with Roche, the world’s largest biopharma producer, which was also put in place last year.
Incheon has a total of 30,000-litres of bioreactor capacity and incorporates upstream and downstream processing units, a fill-and-finish suite, and warehousing with long-term cold storage. The company is currently building a second biologics facility, also in Incheon, which is expected to be completed early next year.
The scope of Samsung’s activities is considerable: outside of biologics, it has recently partnered with a US university to create a digital health research facility.
In collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Samsung’s new venture aims to establish the UCSF-Samsung Digital Health Innovation Lab, a space where they say some of the world’s leading researchers and technologists will be able to develop and run trials to build new mobile health technologies.
Adam Hill
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