SEOUL, Samsung Biologics Co., the biotech arm of South Korea’s Samsung Group, said Wednesday its net profit fell 21.4 percent on-year in the fourth quarter of last year due largely to a one-off factor.

Its net income came to 290.7 billion won (US$217.4 million) in the October-December period of 2023, compared with 369.9 billion won a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Sales rose 11.2 percent on-year to a record high of 1.07 trillion won in the cited period, and operating profit gained 11.9 percent to 350 billion won.

Samsung Biologics said the fall in the fourth-quarter net profit was attributable to a one-off factor related to a takeover deal in 2022.

But the company said its quarterly sales reached an all-time high due largely to large-scale contract manufacturing deals with global big pharmas, such as Pfizer and Novartis, last year. Samsung Biologics won such a deal worth 3.5 trillion won, the largest-ever for a single year.

For the whole of 2023, the Korean bio giant posted a net pro
fit of 857.7 billion won, up 7.5 percent from a year earlier.

Operating income for the year was 1.11 trillion won, up 13.2 percent on-year, and annual sales jumped 23.1 percent to 3.69 trillion won.

Source: Yonhap News Agency