Samsung Bio says it will continue to manufacture products already being made at the site and noted that it plans to invest further to expand capacity and upgrade technology there “to further support a more resilient U.S. supply chain for critical biologic medicines.”
Already boasting an outsized presence in its home country of South Korea, CDMO juggernaut Samsung Biologics is making manufacturing inroads in the U.S. by way of an acquisition.Samsung Bio’s U.S. subsidiary will pay $280 million to acquire GSK's Human Genome Sciences and its two pharmaceutical manufacturing plants at a campus in Rockville, Maryland. The site, which will mark Samsung Bio’s first for production in the U.S., features a total 60,000 liters of drug substance capacity and is equipped to handle clinical and commercial manufacturing from small to large scale, according to a Dec. 21 press release.After working as partners, GSK moved in to acquire Human Genome Sciences for approximately $3.6 billion back in 2012. Samsung Bio says it will continue to manufacture products already being made at the site and noted that it plans to invest further to expand capacity and upgrade technology there “to further support a more resilient U.S. supply chain for critical biologic medicines.”Samsung Bio also plans to retain “more than 500” employees at the site. The Korean CDMO says that it expects the deal to close toward the end of 2026’s first quarter."Today's agreement to divest the Rockville manufacturing site to our valued long-term partner, Samsung Biologics, will secure the manufacture of two important medicines on US soil for US patients and further build GSK's supply chain resilience,” Regis Simard, GSK’s president of global supply chain, said in a statement. Simard did not clarify which drugs Samsung will continue to produce. Samsung Bio already has significant manufacturing firepower on its home turf of Songdo in Incheon, South Korea. All told, the company currently boasts 785,000 liters of capacity across five plants spread over two co-located campuses, with a third campus now on the way. Samsung Bio says it recently secured land for that site, dubbed Bio Campus III, which will be used for both “distinct R&D” and manufacturing programs for new drug modalities.As it stands, the CDMO is equipped to carry out contracting work on medicines like monoclonal antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and mRNA, as well organoid-based services and next-generation therapies.The company’s messaging on U.S. supply chain resilience plays into the onshoring mindset that has driven much of the Trump administration’s pharmaceutical tariff wrangling this year.While many large, brand-name drugmakers have now inked pharmaceutical pricing deals that exempt them from tariffs for a limited period, the question of how the administration’s policies will affect CDMOs and smaller drugmakers has remained largely up in the air.The latest official communication on the Trump administration’s pharma tariffs came in late September, with the suggestion that the U.S. will impose a 100% tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product unless the manufacturer is actively building a plant in the U.S. That rate was originally slated to take effect on Oct. 1, but the administration has apparently paused the trade duty rollout as it worked to hash out pricing deals with the drug industry.Meanwhile, in spite of policy uncertainties this year, Samsung Bio has continued to gin up business with U.S. drugmakers. Back in September, the Korean CDMO announced that it had inked a contract manufacturing deal—slated to run through Dec. 31, 2029—worth 1.8 trillion Korean won (at the time roughly $1.3 billion). Samsung Bio did not disclose the identity of its new partner, except to say that it is a “U.S.-based pharmaceutical company.”The deal value makes the contract the second largest Samsung Bio has secured since it was founded in 2011, local outlet Korea JoongAng Daily reported at the time.