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| Kevin Sharp, vice president and head of Strategic Operations Team and Global Sales Center at Samsung Biologics, speaks during a presentation held on the sideline of the CPhI bio pharmaceutical exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday. Courtesy of Samsung |
By Baek Byung-yeul
FRANKFURT ― Samsung Biologics, a world's leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) company that develops and produces drugs for its clients, said the demand for biomedicine will exceed supply from 2026, adding that finding the best partner to outsource production is becoming more important for global pharmaceutical companies, according to its executive, Tuesday.
"Research and development are getting more and more complex, so bio tech companies are putting a lot more emphasis in funding. Also supply chains are more difficult and complex with different types of molecules and technologies. But at the same time, the speed of market is critical in terms of bringing new products to the market and increasing pressure to bring these products to the market," Kevin Sharp, vice president and head of Strategic Operations Team and Global Sales Center at Samsung Biologics, said during a presentation held on the sidelines of the CPhI exhibition.
"Over the next four or five years, you'll see that there'll be a supply shortage based on the current demand products in the market. If there's no more expansion of growth of facilities and manufacturing capacity in the market, there will be a shortage to produce these products," Sharp added.
The vice president quoted statistics by market tracker Global Data showing that the pace of biomedicine supply will not match the rate of industrial growth, which could lead to severe supply problems in 2026 when demand exceeds supply.
He also emphasized that many global biopharmaceutical companies have come to recognize the importance of inking strategic alliances with outsourcing companies to reduce the burden of investing large amounts of money and time that are required when increasing their own production capacity.
At a time when biopharmaceutical companies are facing difficulties in choosing their CDMO partners, the vice president said it is necessary for them to select a partner company by checking its "must-have" factors such as whether the CDMO can produce a large amount of high quality drugs and "differentiators" that assesses how quickly it can produce products and perform eco-friendly management.
"One is the must-haves, which is narrowing down your options to find the critical criteria where you see the CDMO and secondly there are the differentiators. So how do you optimize the selection criteria to really support your model for outsourcing? As an example for the must-have is capacity availability. How much capacity does the CDMO have to offer? What is their quality system and can they maintain a high level of quality during manufacturing? Do they have the right regulatory track record?" he said.
To meet the fast-changing market situation, Samsung Biologics distinguishes itself from other CDMOs by providing differentiated services across all areas in the contract-based drug development and manufacturing areas.
In particular, the company recently began operations at its fourth plant, which is the world's largest biopharmaceutical production plant with an annual output capacity of 240,000 liters. Samsung invested about 2 trillion won ($1.4 billion) in its construction.
The plant's construction period was only 23 months, showing Samsung has innovative technology in expanding its production capacity. It is also highly evaluated for cutting the tech transfer period to three months, an essential process to produce drugs ordered by its clients, which is half of the industry average.
"Our commitment is to deliver more and more capacity to the market. And as an example of that, we're highlighting the newest manufacturing facility that's bringing an additional 240,000 liters of manufacturing capacity to the market, where we'll then have a total of 600,000 liters for our clients," he said.
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