Regulatory filings released Wednesday reported that operating profit surged 35 percent year-on-year to 580.8 billion won ($392.7 million), while revenue climbed 26 percent to 1.26 trillion won from the year-earlier quarter, the results marking the strongest opening quarter in the company's history.
The Incheon-based contract development and manufacturing organization said it would maintain its full-year revenue growth guidance of 15 to 20 percent, first issued in January. The forecast does not yet incorporate contributions from a newly acquired production facility in Rockville, Maryland, which the company said it would factor into updated projections at a later date.
Samsung Biologics completed the Rockville acquisition at the end of March, securing two current good manufacturing practice plants with a combined 60,000-liter drug substance capacity. The deal gives the company its first U.S. manufacturing footprint and positions it to serve North American pharmaceutical clients with shorter supply chains and faster turnaround times.
The company's cumulative order book now stands at $21.4 billion across 112 contract manufacturing and 169 contract development agreements. Samsung Biologics has also begun ramping up its fifth plant in Incheon, which is expected to drive additional revenue growth through the remainder of the year.
In a separate development, Samsung Biologics said it had agreed with Eli Lilly to establish Lilly Gateway Labs in Songdo, Incheon — the first instance of a global pharmaceutical firm's open innovation program partnering with a Korean company to set up a domestic hub. The facility is intended to foster academic and industry partnerships around next-generation biologic therapies.
The record earnings come as the company faces its first-ever labor dispute.
Samsung Biologics' union, which represents about 75 percent of the workforce, voted overwhelmingly in late March to authorize a strike and held a rally outside the Songdo campus on Wednesday, threatening a walkout from May 1 to 5. The two sides remain at odds over wage increases and personnel policy reforms after 13 rounds of bargaining failed to produce a deal.
Shares of Samsung Biologics closed at 1,567,000 won per stock, 1.32 percent lower than the day before.
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