Under the agreement, Quintiles will make a minority 10% investment of approximately US$30 million to start the new joint venture with the Seoul-based Samsung Group, which will provide biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing services in South Korea.

Samsung will begin construction of a new manufacturing facility near Seoul, South Korea, later in 2011; and plans to sell its first biological products by 2013. Biosimilars, starting with the cancer and rheumatoid arthritis treatment, rituximab (Rituxan), are expected to be in production by 2016.

The investment will help the Samsung Group enter the lucrative biologicals market, which already boasts five of the world’s top 10 bestselling medicines. The Seoul-based group may exceed its target to generate US$1.8 trillion a year by 2020 from biopharmaceuticals because of the demand for those medicines, Samsung Executive Vice President Mr Kim Tae Han told Bloomberg.

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