Over the last several years, Samsung Biologics has been on the rise as one of the most respected CDMO companies in the world. But what exactly is a CDMO, and what makes Samsung Biologics the one to watch in 2021? Here’s everything you need to know about this leading company and the CDMO industry as a whole.
What is a CDMO?
CDMO stands for contract development and manufacturing organization. These businesses operate in a range of industries but all essentially serve the same overall purpose— to partner with existing companies and augment or expand their capabilities. While manufacturing is one of the most important elements of these partnerships, CDMOs like Samsung Biologics will also support their partners in other ways, including research and development.
CDMOs step in to help companies that have major goals for production and distribution but don’t have the means to accomplish those goals themselves. They contract with a CDMO like Samsung Biologics to help them do more and produce more.
In the case of Samsung Biologics, they primarily work with companies in the biopharmaceutical space in developing, researching, and manufacturing drug products, treatments, and vaccines. As one might imagine, this has made Samsung Biologics a top CDMO over the course of the last year, and that reputation is only going to continue to grow.
Major Announcements from a Leading CDMO
Over the course of 2020, Samsung Biologics experienced its most significant period of growth— including a record sales quarter in the 4th quarter of the year. In the first quarter of 2021 that trend continued, but it wasn’t just financial news that had the CDMO industry taking notice of Samsung Biologics.
Here are some of the most significant announcements from this promising CDMO as we head into the second half of 2021.
KAHR Medical Partnership
KAHR Medical is one of the health research industry’s leading developers of cancer immunotherapy, involved in a long list of promising studies on novel multifunctional immune-recruitment proteins. This year, KAHR Medical announced a partnership together with Samsung Biologics. The CDMO will help the company expand their drug substance manufacturing services and cell line development capabilities.
“We are proud to announce our partnership with KAHR Medical for the production of their novel drug candidate,” said John Rim, CEO of Samsung Biologics at a recent event. “We will leverage our fully integrated, scalable, and high-quality development services and experienced teams to enable a faster transition from gene to IND in order to ensure KAHR’s success in bringing cutting edge immuno-recruitment cancer drugs to patients in need.”
“We are very pleased to partner with Samsung BioLogics, which is recognized as a leader in biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing” said Yaron Pereg, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of KAHR. “DSP502 focuses on promising checkpoint pathways, unleashing the potential of the immune system to enhance anti-tumor immunoactivity through dual checkpoint inhibition.”
A New and Promising Vaccine Manufacturing Site
Vaccines have been on everyone’s minds as we all work to end the global COVID-19 pandemic. So it was with great excitement that the CDMO industry and the world at large received the news that Samsung Biologics was developing an advanced mRNA vaccine manufacturing site. This additional manufacturing capability will be fully operational by next year.
“We are constantly assessing various ways that we can expand and persify our current CDMO business portfolio to better serve the market,” said John Rim, CEO of Samsung Biologics. “We are committed to helping our clients provide quality treatments and vaccines to all those in need around the world, especially in difficult times like this, and with this extended capability, we hope to support our partners in bringing novel mRNA vaccines and therapeutics to market at a faster pace.”
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