Title context: South Korea's largest biopharmaceutical M&A deal is about to closewhy is Samsung Biologics betting on the peptide CDMO track? Text: South Korea's largest biopharmaceutical M&A deal is about to closewhy is Samsung Biologics betting on the peptide CDMO track?

South Korea's largest biopharmaceutical M&A deal is about to closewhy is Samsung Biologics betting on the peptide CDMO track? The largest M&A deal in the history of South Korea's biopharmaceutical industry may be about to land. On October 13, South Korea's Samsung Biologics announced the preliminary interim results of its tender offer for Swiss peptide CDMO company Polypeptide Group. The tender offer was executed by Samsung Peptide, the former's Swiss subsidiary, a special purpose company (SPC) established for this acquisition. Specifically, the tender price for this round was CHF 44.31 per share. Of the 33,016,400 issued shares, approximately 29,014,400 shares were tendered, accounting for 87.88% of the target shares of the tender offer, far exceeding the minimum acceptance threshold of 66.7% required for the transaction to be established. Among them, all 18,375,000 shares held by the former largest shareholder, Draupnir Holding, were tendered. In terms of transaction size, the acquisition price is as high as CHF 1.46 billion (approximately RMB 11.787 billion), surpassing the record set in 2022 when SD Biosensor acquired U.S.-based Meridian Bioscience for approximately KRW 2.3 trillion (approximately RMB 11.404 billion). However, since Samsung Biologics' goal is to acquire all shares of Polypeptide Group, the company still needs to wait for the final confirmation of the tender offer results and obtain approvals from regulatory authorities in various countries. It is expected to launch a new round of tender offer from October 19 to 30 and strive to obtain approvals from regulatory authorities in multiple countries and regions, including Europe, India, Australia, and Brazil. GLP-1: The "Trillion-Dollar Market" Behind Peptide CDMOs Going to such great lengthswhy is Samsung Biologics fully betting on Polypeptide? According to public information, Polypeptide, as a leading global peptide API CDMO, operates six GMP-compliant manufacturing sites across five countries, providing one-stop peptide drug development and production services from early clinical stages to commercial-scale manufacturing for pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Peptide drug production capacity is exactly what Samsung Biologics needs right now. In the press release, Samsung Biologics acknowledged that it plans to expand its service business scope from existing antibody drugs, messenger RNA (mRNA), and antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) to the rapidly growing peptide drug field, thereby simultaneously diversifying its product portfolio and securing medium- to long-term growth drivers. Peptide drugs are defined by sequences of 10-50 amino acids, with molecular weights locked in the 1-5 kDa range (kilodaltons, a unit used in biology to measure the molecular weight of proteins/peptides). The industry calls them the "golden ratio" between small molecules and biological macromolecules. For the R&D side, the core value of peptides lies in their ability to effectively target "undruggable" targets while significantly reducing immunogenicity risk. The renowned GLP-1 drugs are members of the peptide drug class, possessing both the high target specificity of macromolecular protein drugs and the relatively simple synthesis and modification potential of small molecules, making chemical modification convenient for achieving long-acting formulations. This attribute has clearly brought commercial success to GLP-1 drugs: in 2025, semaglutide briefly became the world's top-selling drug with sales of DKK 228.288 billion, overtaking Merck's Keytruda. Subsequently, Eli Lilly's GLP-1/GIP dual-target agonist tirzepatide, with its better weight-loss effects, ultimately became the world's top-selling drug in 2025 with sales of USD 36.507 billion. As oral GLP-1 products are successively approved and launched, this figure is expected to continue growing. It is worth noting that GLP-1, now crowned the "drug king," is "feeding back" into the rapid expansion of the peptide market. Since peptides are key raw materials for treating diabetes and obesity in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology market, the role of contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) responsible for developing and producing these core raw materials is becoming increasingly prominent. Taking PolyPeptide as an example, it achieved revenue of EUR 236.6 million in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 41.6%, of which metabolic therapeutics (including GLP-1) revenue was EUR 161.7 million, up 72.6%, accounting for approximately 68% of total revenuea significant increase from 56% in the same period last year. According to Morgan Stanley forecasts, by 2035, the global obesity drug market is expected to grow to USD 150 billion (approximately RMB 1 trillion). As demand for obesity drugs grows, demand for peptide drug R&D and production is also expected to expand. Guotai Haitong pointed out that before GLP-1, limited by high manufacturing costs and extremely short in vivo half-lives, only a few low-dose effective peptide hormone agonists were commercially viable. Today, innovations in drug molecule design and delivery technology have completely broken through the druggability ceiling of peptides. At the same time, coupled with growing market demand in chronic disease areas such as weight loss and glucose lowering, GLP-1 is driving continuous expansion of the peptide drug market. According to the institution's statistics, breakthroughs in peptide druggability combined with growing market demand in chronic disease areas such as weight loss and glucose lowering have pushed the global peptide therapeutics market past USD 130 billion in 2024-2025, and it is advancing toward hundreds of billions of dollars at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 10%. In the domestic market, it is estimated that the peptide CDMO market size will reach RMB 13.4 billion and RMB 35.6 billion in 2028 and 2033, respectively. It emphasized that global peptide CDMOs are entering a capacity expansion cycle to meet the market demand for peptide drugs. Currently, peptide CDMO companies both domestically and internationally are increasing investment in capacity construction, with particular emphasis on building one-stop service capabilities from preclinical to commercial production. From the perspective of the CXO industry, BOC International stated that new businesses such as peptides, oligonucleotides, ADCs, and macromolecules are driving growth for CDMO companies; the industry has abundant orders in hand, providing strong certainty for subsequent revenue realization and performance growth. Orders for CXO-related companies continue to grow rapidly, with strong performance certainty. This article is reprinted from "Cailian Press"; GMTEight editor: Yan Wencai.