SAN DIEGO, California -- Virtual reality headsets, a digitized traditional painting and miniature building replicas -- these are not things you would normally expect to see at a biotechnology and pharma industry event.

Yet, they are all offerings available at the Samsung BioLogics booth at the 2017 Bio International Convention in San Diego, where the Samsung-owned contract drug manufacturer is working to appeal to its target clientele of global biopharmaceutical companies.

Leveraging its roots in high tech, Samsung BioLogics has deployed VR headsets that take visitors to the inside of its production plants in Songdo, Incheon. It has even added an LED screen showing a Korean traditional painting with digitized antibodies falling like snowflakes. 

“Many of our visitors are always impressed by our booth, particularly at how we’ve managed to introduce our facilities via VR, which is something you just can’t find elsewhere here,” said Samsung BioLogics spokesperson Edward Kang. 

“They help attract attention as well as draw new visitors, including firms who may not have arranged meetings with us.”

Every day, Samsung BioLogics welcomed a diverse pool of visitors to its booth, including those from biopharma companies, research institutions and even plant construction firms interested in Samsung’s biologics plant engineering technology.

A major change for Samsung BioLogics this year is its foray into the development support services business that extends the scope of its initial trade -- manufacturing commercial biologic drugs ordered by clients.

The expansion is apparent in the change in Samsung BioLogics’ official label from a contract manufacturing organization, or CMO, to a contract development manufacturing organization, or CDMO. 

“Now that we’ve secured global competitiveness in contract manufacturing, we’re extending into the realm of development services,” CEO Kim Tae-han said in an interview with the Korean media on the sidelines of the conference. 

As a CDMO, a business model taken on by rivals like Lonza and Boehringer Ingelheim, Samsung BioLogics will offer more comprehensive services that extend from early drug development all the way to commercial manufacturing. 

It can produce a small batch of a drug in development by a client for early-stage clinical trials, and later provide support for subsequent development processes such as selecting the best cell lines for formulating the particular drug and optimizing its production and scale-up processes for commercial sales.

At the four-day US conference, Kim Tae-han and high-level staff attended multiple meetings with potential clients interested in its CDMO services, including the heads of big pharma at this year’s Bio International, according to the company. 

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)