Samsung BioLogics suffers loss in 2016

SEOUL, Jan. 24 (Yonhap) -- Samsung BioLogics, a biopharmaceutical unit of South Korea's top conglomerate Samsung Group, suffered a loss last year despite a sharp rise in sales, the company said Tuesday.

Sales more than tripled to 295 billion won (US$252.6 million) in 2016 from 91.28 billion the previous year, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Despite the spike in sales, the company posted a net loss of 177 billion won.

The company explained that its 2015 earnings were based on a consolidated basis that included earnings of its subsidiaries, such as Samsung Bioepis, while the 2016 earnings only reflected those of BioLogics.

The company's operating loss came to 30.4 billion won in 2016, it added.

In the fourth quarter, sales came to 105.6 billion won, compared with 52.8 billion won in the previous quarter.

The net loss widened to some 57 billion won from 44.1 billion won over the cited period, while the operating loss narrowed from 12.86 billion won to little over 700 million won.

Samsung BioLogics made a market debut here in November last year raising some 2.25 trillion won, the largest since Samsung Life Insurance Co.'s 4.89 trillion won in 2010.

The country's leading conglomerate has been realigning its business portfolio to find new revenue sources. In particular, Samsung's heir apparent Lee Jae-yong has pointed out that the biosimilar business is one of the group's key businesses in the future.

Samsung BioLogics is 52.1 percent owned by Samsung Group's de facto holding company Samsung C&T Corp. and 47.8 percent controlled by Samsung Electronics Co., a global tech giant.

The company is investing $730 million in its third plant with a bioreactor capacity of 180,000 liters. Once the third plant is operational in 2018, Samsung BioLogics is expected to have the world's largest capacity for a biologics contract manufacturing organization (CMO), with a total production capacity of 362,000 liters.

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