Merger and acquisition deals in South Korea’s pharma/biotech sector have remained relatively few compared to other countries, but several factors are now pointing to a possible increase in activity as pharma and biotech firms hunt for new technologies and growth. 

With the acquisition of US-based contract development and manufacturing organization AMPAC Fine Chemicals, SK has added the US production base to its European and Korean production facilities, placing it on track to becoming a top global CDMO player with annual production capacity of about 1.6 million liters.

SK Biotek's acquisition of BMS's small molecule API manufacturing plant in Ireland underlines South Korean conglomerate SK Group’s stepped up efforts to grow its biotech and pharma business. The move is in line with SK Biotek's plan to sharply raise revenue and corporate value in the coming years, and the CMO is also considering additional acquisitions or collaborations.

2016 witnessed a second straight year of decline in the number of new active substance launches worldwide, but trend data show that this hard measure of R&D productivity was still healthy compared with industry's performance during the first decade of the century.