Enter 2021.02.10 06:00
Petrochemical business, advanced materials business, life science business, etc.
Focused investment in the’bio’ field this year among the three headquarters
Slower than SK and Samsung, but develops 40 new drugs–
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According to the LG Group on the 10th, the investment of the Life Science Business Division, the main pillar of LG Chem’s new drug development project this year, is expected to be about 200 billion won. In addition, the company plans to expand and hire R&D personnel. In 2017, LG Chem merged with LG Life Sciences, a subsidiary of the group, to focus on fostering the bio business, a new growth engine for the future. The merger between the two companies reflects LG Group’s expectations to foster bio business.
In particular, with the spin-off of the battery sector (LG Energy Solution), LG Chem decided to strengthen its investment in the bio industry, which has been a subordinated investment. LG Chem has changed from the four business headquarters system to the current petrochemical business unit, advanced materials business unit, and life science business unit.
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The life science division’s profitability also improved. The headquarters, which had relatively poor performance compared to other business divisions, recorded the highest annual sales and operating profit since its foundation last year. Last year, the Life Sciences Business Division recorded 6614 billion won in sales and 53.8 billion won in operating profit. Sales increased 5.4% and operating profit increased 44.6% from the previous year.
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LG Chem will also increase its research manpower this year. An official from LG Chem said, “We plan to continuously increase the number of R&D personnel this year.” In the’LG Chem Life Sciences Innovation Center’, which opened in Boston in 2019, about 10 people are in charge of brokerage medicine and local open innovation functions, and are managing local clinical trials in the US, a self-developed pipeline. . Center R&D personnel will also be increased.
LG Chem has also expanded its pipeline to 40 new drugs. This is 10 times higher than the clinical stage pipeline, which was only 4 in 2019. This year, LG Chem is planning to accelerate clinical trials such as candidates for metabolic diseases, which are key pipelines, and cell therapy for anticancer and immune diseases. It plans to end phase 2 clinical trials of a gout treatment that is being developed with the goal of’Best in Class’ within the second quarter.
Hereditary obesity treatment, which has been designated as an orphan drug by the US FDA as a treatment for hereditary obesity, aims to complete phase 1 clinical trials by next year. The new drug for treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis is also aimed to end phase 1 clinical trials next year. In the field of anti-cancer and immune diseases, it has also started developing cell therapy products such as CAR-T.
“After the merger of (LG Life Science), LG Chem’s Life Sciences Division has greatly expanded the number of new drug projects to about 40 through R&D investment and omnidirectional open innovation over the past 4 years.” “We will secure global competitiveness in new drugs and leap forward to become a global bio company with the foundation to continuously launch innovative new drugs.”
In the business world, LG Chem is paying attention to whether it will become a bio powerhouse like Samsung and SK while strengthening its bio business. Some say that growth is still slower than that of Samsung and SK. In the case of Samsung Group, biosimilars and pharmaceutical consignment production (CMO) business is carried out through Samsung Biologics and Samsung Bioepis, while SK Group provides vaccines, new drugs, and CMOs through its affiliates SK Bioscience, SK Biopharm, and SK Biotech. We are producing results through
On the other hand, LG Chem has not been able to come up with the results of new drug development after Gemiglo, the first drug for treating diabetes in Korea. The bio business can achieve results after spending a lot of money over a long period of time, so the financial burden is also high. An industry insider said, “It is an encouraging move for the growth of the national bio industry for conglomerates with capital and manufacturing capabilities like Samsung and SK to show aggressive moves in the bio field.” I will have to pay,” he said.
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