Samsung Biologics CEO John Rim on August 28 finalized pricing for a 3 trillion won ($2.2 billion) rights offering that directs 2.71 trillion won toward the company's pending acquisition of Swiss peptide manufacturer PolyPeptide Group. The remaining 294.8 billion won will fund a sixth production plant at Songdo Bio Campus II in Incheon. Bloomberg reported the offering as the financing mechanism behind the largest biopharmaceutical transaction in Korean corporate history.
The company will issue 2.27 million new shares at 1.322 million won each, diluting existing holders by 4.9 percent. Samsung Biologics announced the all-cash bid for PolyPeptide—1.46 billion Swiss francs, roughly $1.8 billion—on July 17, Chemical & Engineering News reported. PolyPeptide manufactures peptide and oligonucleotide active pharmaceutical ingredients at plants in Europe, the United States, and India. Acquiring those sites gives Samsung Biologics production capacity across three regulatory jurisdictions simultaneously, a structural advantage for sponsors running GLP-1 receptor-agonist programs that must satisfy both FDA and EMA review before reaching patients in either market.
Market reaction and capacity math
Shares fell 6.78 percent on the day of the announcement as investors absorbed the dilution, the Korea Times reported. Rim described the raise as the funding backbone of a "three-dimensional growth strategy" linking the PolyPeptide purchase, the Incheon buildout, and a push into peptide modalities beyond the antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates that currently fill Samsung Biologics' 845,000-liter global capacity. The company operates 785,000 liters across two campuses in Songdo and 60,000 liters at a Rockville, Maryland facility. Bringing Plants 6 through 8 online after Plant 5's 2025 completion would lift total capacity to 1,385,000 liters by 2032, according to a company statement distributed through PR Newswire.
PolyPeptide's plants add a capability Samsung Biologics does not currently hold: solid-phase and solution-phase peptide synthesis at commercial scale. Demand for peptide APIs has accelerated alongside clinical pipelines for GLP-1–based obesity and diabetes treatments such as Wegovy and Mounjaro. Independent contract-manufacturing capacity has been tight, which is part of what makes a vertically integrated peptide CDMO with sites on three continents attractive to sponsors navigating FDA-approved peptide pathways and parallel European filings.
Swiss tender conditions and closing timeline
The rights offering does not by itself close the deal. Swiss takeover law requires Samsung Biologics to clear a minimum acceptance threshold of nearly 67 percent of PolyPeptide shares and to obtain required regulatory approvals. PolyPeptide's independent board members unanimously recommended that shareholders accept the tender offer, a condition noted in the deal's public filings. Samsung Biologics has stated it expects to close by year-end.
Existing shareholders may subscribe to the offering on November 9 and 10. A general public subscription for unclaimed shares follows November 12 and 13, with new shares targeted for listing on November 30. The 67 percent tender threshold and the Swiss regulatory sign-off remain the binding conditions between Samsung Biologics and ownership of PolyPeptide's manufacturing network.
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