Securing New Growth Engines... Domestic Pharma Bio Industry Bets on 'CDMO' Strategy

MediPost Decides to Acquire Canada OmniaBio
Hanmi Fine Chemical Invests 10 Billion in High-Tech CDMO

Exterior view of Medipost.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwanju] To secure new growth engines, the domestic pharmaceutical and bio industry is making a bold move into the Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) sector. With the global market for biopharmaceuticals expected to continue growing, companies are expanding their CDMO presence through various means, including acquiring foreign CDMO firms and investing in domestic facilities.

According to industry sources on the 5th, Medipost recently decided to invest 90 million Canadian dollars (approximately 88.6 billion KRW) in OmniaBio, a Canadian cell and gene therapy CDMO company. Medipost's subsidiary, Medipost CDMO, acquired 39.6% of OmniaBio's existing shares for 30 million Canadian dollars (approximately 29.5 billion KRW) and plans to invest an additional 60 million Canadian dollars (approximately 59.1 billion KRW) by the end of 2024, becoming the largest shareholder of OmniaBio by 2027.

Through this investment, OmniaBio is expected to become the largest CDMO company in Canada for cell and gene therapy development. The company will actively engage in clinical phase 3 trials and commercialization of genetically modified cells and viral vector-related materials, while expanding research facilities and cGMP-level production facilities covering approximately 10,000 square meters by 2025.

With this investment, OmniaBio plans to expand its research and cGMP production facilities to about 10,000㎡ by 2025. Consequently, Medipost has entered the rapidly growing cell and gene therapy CDMO business and is expected to accelerate the entry of stem cell therapies into the North American market. A Medipost representative explained, "OmniaBio, a proven cell and gene therapy CDMO company, needed to expand its business beyond the North American market into Asia. Since we had plans to enter the North American market with Cartistem and expand our CDMO business, the needs of both companies aligned, facilitating this smooth investment."

Research scene at Hanmi Precision Chemical.

Hanmi Fine Chemical has declared its entry into the 'high-tech CDMO' business through domestic facility investments. The company plans to invest about 10 billion KRW to expand its facilities and challenge the CDMO sector for high-difficulty synthetic biopharmaceutical raw materials, including lipid nanoparticles (LNP) used in messenger RNA (mRNA) raw materials, nucleotides, capping agents, polyethylene glycol (PEG) derivatives, and peptides. Hanmi Fine Chemical's greatest strength lies in nearly 40 years of accumulated expertise in active pharmaceutical ingredients and bio new drug research and development (R&D). It has passed GMP inspections in major advanced countries such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, and has accumulated know-how through collaborations with global big pharma. CEO Jang Younggil of Hanmi Fine Chemical stated, "Our capability to rapidly develop materials requiring high-difficulty synthetic technology is already the best in Korea," adding, "We aim for sales in the 10 billion KRW range this year and 20 billion KRW within the next two years."

Earlier in April, GC Cell, which has been expanding its CDMO scale by acquiring the U.S. cell and gene therapy CDMO company Bioscentric, recently signed a CDMO contract to produce clinical trial drugs for solid tumor-targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapies. Through this contract, GC Cell will manufacture and conduct quality testing for the phase 1 clinical trial drug of Cellab Med's solid tumor-targeting CAR-T therapy 'YYB-103.' Cellab Med received approval for the first phase 1 clinical trial plan (IND) targeting solid tumors (brain cancer) patients in Korea. GC Cell holds both NK and T cell pipelines domestically and plans to accelerate its global CDMO market strategy based on its successful technology transfers to multinational pharmaceutical companies.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.