Samsung Biologics, Lotte Biologics head to Bio Japan to expand K-biotech contracts

Bio Japan 2026, Asia's largest pharmaceutical and biotech conference, opens Wednesday in Yokohama, Japan.

Leading South Korean contract development and manufacturing organizations, or CDMOs, including Samsung Biologics and Lotte Biologics, will join a broad contingent of K-biotech firms targeting major new contracts in the Asia-Pacific market.

The three-day event runs Wednesday through Friday at the Pacifico Yokohama convention center.

Launched in 1986, Bio Japan covers the full biotech spectrum — drug development, CDMO services, regenerative medicine and AI-driven healthcare. This year's edition again runs alongside Regenerative Medicine Japan and healthTECH Japan.

South Korea's major CDMO companies will each operate dedicated booths to showcase their capabilities to global pharmaceutical giants and leading Japanese drug makers.

Samsung Biologics, attending for the fourth consecutive year since 2023, will run a standalone booth highlighting its end-to-end research, development and manufacturing services and its world-leading production capacity of 845,000 liters.

On the opening day, Executive Vice President James Choi will present the company's integrated CDMO service strategy. Choe Yeon-jeong of the New Modality Group will then unveil research on optimizing antibody-drug conjugate, or ADC, conjugation processes using computational fluid dynamics, signaling Samsung Biologics' push for ADC contracts.

Lotte Biologics will also operate a dedicated exhibition booth to build out its Asian contract network. The company received usage approval for its first factory at Songdo Bio Campus in June and plans to achieve GMP-ready status — the final production-readiness stage — by year-end, ahead of an official completion ceremony scheduled for November.

At its booth, Lotte Biologics will highlight its automated manufacturing control system, digital twin technology and computational fluid dynamics simulation capabilities. The company will pursue global partnering meetings centered on its Korea-US dual-site model, which links its clinical-stage factory in Syracuse, New York with its large-scale commercial production hub in Songdo, South Korea.

Alteogen, LigaChem Biosciences, Peptron, G2gbio and Organoid Sciences will also participate in partnering meetings to advance their drug development and platform biotech businesses. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups and North Chungcheong Province's Technopark will operate a joint pavilion to support South Korean biotech ventures seeking technology transfers and overseas expansion.

Major global pharmaceutical companies will also converge on the event. Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson will hold official seminars sharing their drug development ecosystems and incubation strategies, and will seek to expand open-innovation partnerships with Asian biotech firms.

WuXi XDC, the world's leading antibody-drug conjugate contract research, development and manufacturing organization, will host a session on its one-stop platform and overseas production expansion, actively pursuing business collaboration opportunities between global pharmaceutical companies and Asian biotech ventures.