Samsung Biologics To Pay $280M For Maryland Manufacturing Campus
South Korean pharmaceutical giant Samsung Biologics is making a major acquisition in the D.C. suburbs to establish its first U.S. manufacturing facility.
The company reached an agreement to acquire the former Human Genome Sciences manufacturing campus in Rockville, Maryland, from GSK for $280M, the buyer announced Sunday.
Samsung Biologics expects the deal to close next quarter. It said it would retain more than 500 employees at the facility.
The drug manufacturer is establishing a U.S. production footprint in part to mitigate the impact of President Donald Trump's tariff policies, an unnamed Samsung Biologics official told The Korea Economic Daily.
The company didn't mention tariffs in its press release, in which CEO John Rim called the acquisition “a testament to our unwavering commitment to advancing global healthcare and bolstering our manufacturing capabilities in the U.S.”
“The investment will enable us to deepen our collaboration with federal, state, and local stakeholders to best serve our customers and partners while ensuring a reliable and stable supply of life-saving therapeutics,” Rim said in the statement.
The two-building campus at 9911 Belward Campus Drive in Rockville totals about 420K SF, the Washington Business Journal reported. GSK took over the Montgomery County property when it acquired Human Genome Sciences in 2012.
The sale comes after GSK in September committed to invest $30B in manufacturing and research and development in the U.S. over the next five years, but it appears it won't be doing that in Maryland.
GSK is also leaving a Rockville R&D facility it inherited with the Human Genome Sciences acquisition. The company said in February it would move out of the 635K SF property at 14200 Shady Grove Road before its lease expires in summer 2026. The company has been expanding its presence in the life sciences epicenter of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The entrance of Samsung Biologics serves to blunt the impact of GSK's departure for suburban Maryland, which is one of the country's top life sciences market due to the presence of federal assets like the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
The market for life sciences R&D facilities has been hit hard in this region and nationally by a confluence of factors, from the drop-off of venture capital funding to the Trump administration's cuts this year. But the growth of biomanufacturing has served as a bright spot, industry executives said earlier this month at Bisnow's Mid-Atlantic Life Sciences and Biotech Summit.
Pharmaceutical giants including AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Merck have announced multibillion-dollar investments in Maryland and Virginia this year.
“Biomanufacturing is all the rage now,” South Duvall Vice President Matt Brown said at the summit. “It's where the investment is going. It's where the capital is going.”
