이 기사는 2021년 11월 10일 08:09 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

CJ Cheiljedang, part of South Korea’s conglomerate CJ Group, is set to acquire Netherlands-based Batavia Biosciences only a few months after its acquisition of ChunLab – a move that will allow the food and biotech company to pursue a two-track strategy for future growth.

CJ Cheiljedang has agreed to acquire a 76% stake in Batavia for about 195 million euros ($226 million), according to a regulatory filing on Monday.

Batavia, founded by pharmaceutical company Janssen's vaccine experts in 2010, specializes in developing manufacturing processes for viral vaccine and vector production. Post the acquisition, the current largest shareholder will remain the company’s second largest shareholder and continue to run the business.

The deal comes after CJ Cheiljedang acquired ChunLab, a Seoul-based bioinformatics company, this summer to create synergies in the microbiome field.

With its acquisition of Batavia, CJ Cheiljedang is stepping into the biopharmaceutical contract development and management organization (CDMO) market, expanding its business portfolio in the “red biotech” space – a term indicating biotechnology in the medical and pharmaceutical industries that involves biological compounds such as vaccines and antibiotics.

The CDMO business generates a steady revenue stream, which would help to reduce earnings volatility and also could be used to fund the development of new drugs and therapies.

Batavia counts global pharmaceutical companies and institutions – such as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and International AIDS Vaccine Initiative – among its customers. It recorded revenue of 30.9 billion won ($26.2 million) in 2020 and 24 billion won in 2019.

The deal will also allow CJ Cheiljedang to be well positioned to benefit from the rapid growth in the market for cell and gene therapies. The market is forecast to grow at an average rate of 25% per year by 2025, especially with the use of the technology in the anticancer drug sector.

Competition is getting fierce in the cell and gene therapy CDMO market, with large medical and pharmaceutical companies continuing to expand their production capabilities for cell and gene therapies through acquisitions.

Thermo Fisher Scientific acquired Patheon in August 2017, Brammer Bio in March 2019 and Henogen in January 2021. Catalent bought Cook Pharmica in September 2017, Paragon Bioservices in April 2019 and MaSTherCell in February 2020. Samsung Biologics, the number one pharmaceutical CDMO in the world, earlier this year announced plans to expand its business to include gene therapies.

“The biopharmaceutical CDMO business generates steady revenue,” an official at CJ Cheiljedang said. “But on top of that, the growth potential of the market for cell and gene therapies is very appealing and it is even more so given that there are no dominant players in the market yet.”

SK Pharmteco, a pharmaceutical CDMO wholly owned by SK Inc, also acquired France-based Yposkesi in March this year to expand into the cell and gene therapy sector. It recorded revenue of 700 billion won in 2020 and is preparing for an initial public offering in New York in 2023. (Reporting by Ah-kyoung Lee)