Samsung Biologics, the country's largest contract manufacturing company, will run its production lines at full throttle during the upcoming Lunar New Year's holiday to ensure timely delivery of pouring orders, industry sources said Tuesday. An official from Samsung Biologics also noted the company has been operating 24/7, 365 days a year to meet its goals in regards to promised delivery times. Samsung Biologics also maintained its production level during the Chuseok holiday last year a

Technology Jan. 17, 2023

Harry, who has called South Korea home for 16 years, is considering moving someplace else with more affordable child care. A senior semiconductor engineer working for a conglomerate here, he and his wife pay some 1 million won ($810) a month for their two young children to attend day care. Unlike Korean parents, who pay far less for day care thanks to monthly government subsidies, foreigners are not eligible for the aid. “If I’m able to find a job or get a good offer from any country

Social Affairs Jan. 17, 2023

Korea Herald correspondent SAN FRANCISCO -- ABL Bio will release the results of early stage clinical trials regarding the company's oncology treatment candidates in this year, with hopes in license-out opportunities. “ABL Bio expects to introduce favorable clinical data regarding the company’s oncology treatment candidates,” ABL Bio CEO Lee Sang-hoon said on Thursday during an interview held on the sidelines of the 41th JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. ABL

Technology Jan. 16, 2023

SK pharmteco, a California-based contract development and manufacturing organization under Korean conglomerate SK Inc., is expected to postpone its initial public offering at least until 2024 due to market volatility, top officials from the firm and SK affiliates said Wednesday. The year of 2024 will be “the earliest possible period” to reconsider the company's stock market debut, said SK pharmteco CEO Joerg Ahlgrimm. SK's CDMO unit initially planned to go public on Korea

Technology Jan. 13, 2023

By Shim Woo-hyun Korea Herald correspondent SAN FRANCISCO -- Samsung Biologics pinpointed antibody-drug conjugates, a next-generation technology in cancer treatment, as one of its future growth drivers as the South Korean biotech giant unveiled its business strategies and investment plans Wednesday during the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, the health care industry’s largest investment gathering of the year. “We are going into ADC. We will have a manufacturing plan

Technology Jan. 12, 2023

SAN FRANCISCO -- Lotte Biologics will invest around $3 billion by 2030 to build new CDMO plants in South Korea, Lotte Biologics CEO Richard Lee announced during the company’s presentation at the 41st JPMorgan Healthcare Conference held in San Francisco, Tuesday. The investment will go toward building three plants, with a combined manufacturing capacity of 360,000 liters, 120,000 each, according to Lee. About $1 billion will be needed per plant, Lee estimated. The company will start to buil

Technology Jan. 11, 2023

SAN FRANCISCO – South Korean pharmaceutical giant Yuhan is seeking to increase cooperation with researchers and biotechnology firms based in the US, with hopes to benefit from the nation’s abundant human resources and research opportunities. “Yuhan might be a leading pharmaceutical company in South Korea, but in the US market, it is still an underdog,” said Yuhan USA CEO Yoon Tae-won during an interview held on the sidelines of the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, the la

Technology Jan. 11, 2023

Korea Herald correspondent SAN FRANCISCO -- The 41st Annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference kicked off on Monday in San Francisco. This year, three South Korean companies will give presentations, while many others will hold meetings to attract new partners and investors. Around 550 presenting companies have descended on the Californian city, in addition to thousands of investors and biotechnology executives from around the world. From Korea, Samsung Biologics, Lotte Biologics and SD Biosensor h

Technology Jan. 10, 2023

Korean internet portal giant Naver announced Friday that the company has completed its acquisition of Poshmark, a US social commerce marketplace for fashion, a move to penetrate into the global consumer-to-consumer market. Naver's special purpose company Proton Parent acquired all shares and its assets of Poshmark for $1.31 billion. Its enterprise value stands at about $1.2 billion. With the transaction, Poshmark withdrew its plan to go public on the US Nasdaq, Naver said. Naver first decid

Technology Jan. 6, 2023

Celltrion announced Thursday that the company has cleared the regulatory hurdle to sell Vegzelma, a biosimilar referencing Roche's Bevacizumab sold under the brand name Avastin, in the Canadian market. Vegzelma, or also known as CT-P16, is used to treat a number of types of cancers including metastatic colorectal cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. According to Celltrion, Canada’s drug regulator Health Canada has authorized the sale of the drug for all indications that Roche's

Technology Jan. 5, 2023

Stock prices of some South Korean biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have increased based on expectations that China’s sudden spike in COVID-19 cases could positively impact their sales. On early afternoon Wednesday, the stock price of in-vitro diagnostics company SD Biosensor’s stock price went up 5.9 percent to 29,600 won ($23.24). Seegene, another major in-vitro diagnostics company, saw its stock price climb 6.5 percent to 27,800 won. Their stock price hikes came after the

Technology Jan. 4, 2023

Lotte Group has completed a $160 million acquisition of US drug firm Bristol Myers Squibb, the group’s drug manufacturing unit Lotte Biologics said Tuesday. With the latest deal, the country's fifth-largest retail-chemical conglomerate has made its official debut in the contract manufacturing market, after the group established Lotte Biologics in June last year as its biopharmaceutical subsidiary. Lotte Biologics said the company completed all acquisition processes on Dec. 31 to absor

Technology Jan. 3, 2023

A merged entity of Posco Group’s trading arm Posco International and power generation unit Posco Energy has been launched with the former Posco President Jeong Tak as its new CEO, Posco International announced Monday. With the latest merger, the country’s largest trading company has scaled up, with annual sales surpassing 40 trillion won ($31 billion) and its annual operating profit reaching around 1 trillion won. In terms of sales, Posco International, the second-largest company wit

Industry Jan. 2, 2023

South Korea’s major biopharma companies were hit by a combined loss of 55 trillion won ($43.5 billion) in their market capitalization last year, Korea Exchange data showed Sunday. According to Korea Exchange, the KRX Health Care Index, comprising 83 major biotech and pharmaceutical companies listed on either the benchmark Kospi or tech-heavy Kosdaq, fell 29.2 percent on-year to 2,634.49 points as of Thursday, from 3,721.17 on Dec. 30, 2021. The combined market capitalization of the 83 list

Technology Jan. 1, 2023

Samsung Bioepis has brought forward its interchangeability study of Hadlima to speed up its processes for obtaining interchangeability designation in the US market, according to industry sources on Sunday. Hadlima is Samsung Bioepis' biosimilar referencing AbbVie’s blockbuster drug Humira, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and other conditions. Samsung Bioepis previously planned to complete its study needed to establish the interchangeability

Technology Jan. 1, 2023