Samsung Biologics has agreed to acquire PolyPeptide Group, a Swiss contract manufacturer of therapeutic peptides, in an all-cash tender offer worth about 1.46 billion Swiss francs, or roughly 1.8 billion dollars.
The offer is 44.31 Swiss francs a share, a premium of about 40 percent to where the stock closed before reports of a deal began circulating. PolyPeptide's largest shareholder, which holds 55.7 percent, has already committed to tendering, which removes most of the doubt about whether the offer clears the two-thirds shareholder approval it needs.
What Samsung is buying
PolyPeptide has been in the business for more than 70 years and has produced over 1,000 therapeutic peptides. It is headquartered in Switzerland and runs plants in Sweden, Belgium, France, the United States and India, so the deal buys manufacturing capacity across two continents alongside the technical know how.
For Samsung Biologics, the logic is category expansion. The company built its business on antibodies, and adding peptides gives it a platform spanning antibodies, antibody drug conjugates and now peptides, which lets it pitch itself to drugmakers as a single manufacturing partner across several modalities rather than one.