Samsung Bioepis makes ₩847 billion expanding overseas

with the sale of its self-developed biosimilars

Expanded sales of its 5 biosimilars to the US and Europe… sales increase 130% in 3 years

Samsung Bioepis made a new sales record last year.

 

With the global expansion of its biosimilars well on track, the company had made over ₩800 billion last year.

 

According to the Korea Financial Supervisory Service, Samsung Bioepis’s sales recorded ₩847 billion last year, a 9.0% increase from the previous year.

 

This is the largest record ever since the company was established in 2012.

 

Sales have increased 129.7% in just 3 years from ₩368.7 billion in 2018, and have been breaking its sales record ever since.

 

Annual Sales of Samsung Bioepis (Unit: million won, Data: Financial Supervisory Service)

After recording ₩765.9 billion in sales in 2019, the company’s growth rate had fallen to 1.5% the next year.

 

The reduced growth has been due to the temporary market contraction that occurred in the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis.

 

The company’s quarterly performance had then showed ups and downs with preorders from hospitals and wholesalers in Europe to secure a supply.

 

However, the company’s recovered growth last year was driven by the increased sales of biosimilars in the US and Europe.

 

Samsung Bioepis’ sales are mostly generated by overseas sales of biosimilars that were developed by the company.

 

Samsung Bioepis had succeeded in commercializing biosimilars of 6 products - Enbrel, Remicade, Herceptin, Humira, Avastin, and Lucentis.

 

All 6 products were approved in Europe, and 5 products less the Avastin biosimilar achieved marketing authorization in the US.

 

The five biosimilars from the company had recorded $1,255,100,000 (approx.

 

₩1.5 trillion) in overseas sales last year.

 

This is an 11% increase and a new record from the $1,125,800,000 it made in 2020.

 

Samsung Bioepis’ biosimilar is sold abroad by its partners Biogen and Organon.

 

Biogen sells the company’s biosimilars of Enbrel, Remicade, Humira for autoimmune diseases in Europe.

 

Organon sells the mentioned products in countries other than Europe and Korea, and the Remicade biosimilar in the US.

 

Organon is also in charge of overseas sales of Samsung’s two anticancer drugs, the biosimilars of Herceptin and Avastin.

 

Last year, Biogen’s sales of Samsung Bioepis’ biosimilars recorded $831,100,000 (approx.

 

₩1 trillion), which was a 4% increase from the previous year.

 

Organon’s sales of Bioepis’ products also increased 28% from the previous year to record $424,000,000 (approx.

 

₩500 billion).

 

Also, the approval of the biosimilars abroad has added new milestones.

 

In August last year, the company’s Lucentis biosimilar ‘Byooviz’ that it developed received marketing authorization from the European Commission (EC) and the U.S.

 

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a month later.

 

Samsung Bioepis will be converted into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Biologics.

 

At the time of its establishment, Samsung Bioepis was established as a joint venture between Samsung Biologics and Biogen.

 

Samsung Bioepis was launched in February 2012 with a capital of ₩164.7 billion, and Biogen initially invested 15% of the capital, 24.7 billion won.

 

With Biogen only partially participating in the paid-in capital increase, its share fell to 5.4% in 2017.

 

In 2018, Biogen had exercised its call option over Samsung Epis and increased its shares to 50%.

 

Previously, the company had signed a call option agreement under which the company may acquire ‘50% less 1 share’ of Bioepis’s stock by June 29th, 2018.

 

And upon the date of expiry, Biogen decided to acquire the stocks.

 

In June 2018, the company acquired 9,226,068 of the 19,567,921 shares of Bioepis that were owned by Samsung Biologics for $700 million (₩748.6 billion).

 

In January, Samsung Biologics decided to acquire 10,341,852 shares (50% stake) of Samsung Bioepis that was owned by Biogen for ₩2.765 trillion.

 

Samsung Biologics plans to pay the remaining amount of the acquisition price in installments over the next two years.

 

After the acquisition, Samsung Biologics will own 100% of Samsung Bioepis’s shares.