A bio-technology subsidiary of Samsung Group, South Korea's largest family-run conglomerate, has applied for initial public offering (IPO) in its main bourse estimated to be valued at about 3 trillion won (2.7 billion U.S. dollars).

The main bourse operator Korea Exchange was quoted by local media as saying on Friday that Samsung BioLogics applied for a preliminary approval for its IPO, which would be this year's biggest public offering of a domestic company.

Samsung BioLogics is estimated to raise some 3 trillion won through the upcoming listing within this year and become a top 30 firm in the main bourse with a market capitalization of about 10 trillion won.

The Samsung bio-tech unit, established in April 2011, is a contract manufacturer of biosimilars, or copycat versions of biomedicine, for global pharmaceutical companies. Biomedicine is a biologic drug made from living organism.

It is 51-percent owned by Samsung Group's de-facto holding company Samsung C&T and 46.8 percent held by Samsung Electronics, the group's crown jewel tech subsidiary.

Samsung BioLogics owns a 91.2 percent share in Samsung Bioepis, launched in 2012 to develop and manufacture biosimilars in partnership with the U.S.-based biotech firm Biogen.

The company is the world's third-largest contract manufacturer of biosimilars with a production capacity of 180,000 liters, following Lonza of Switzerland with an annual capacity of 240,000 liters and Boehringer Ingelheim of Germany with 210,000 liters.

Samsung plans to increase its annual capacity to 360,000 liters by 2018 through the construction of its third plant.

Source : XINHUA