As large Korean CDMO companies, including Samsung Biologics and Lotte Biologics, vie to expand manufacturing facilities, their competition has moved to recruit a specialized workforce, an industry group said.

In its Issue Briefing on Monday, KoreaBIO pointed to the shortage of experienced workers in the contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) service business, stressing that securing manpower has emerged as an urgent issue.

According to the association of biopharmaceutical companies, Lotte Biologics expressed its intention last Friday to build a mega plant for CDMO business in Songdo, Incheon, by investing about 3.7 trillion won ($2.97 billion) and submitted the letter of intent to invest.

“Samsung Biologics will complete the construction of its fourth plant in the first half-year and pushes to build four more factories. Celltrion is building its third plant, and Lotte Biologics plan to build three CMO plans with a capacity of 120,000 liters,” the report said. “Given the facility expansion plans of the three companies alone, the industry needs to secure a huge additional workforce in the future.”

More specifically, the association predicted the industry would need at least several thousand more workers in the next five years, albeit depending on each company’s project progress.

It added that Lotte Biologics needs a basic workforce right now because it has to make detailed plans for plant construction and operation.

Another big problem facing these companies in setting up workforce demand and supply plans is how to secure technological experts in basic areas like manufacturing and engineering processes and more detailed areas, such as antibody treatments, the largest market right now, and cellular and genetic treatments whose markets are rapidly growing, the association noted.

Also, since there aren't many experienced or expert groups in Korea, competition among companies to attract talent will likely intensify in the future, it predicted.

“How to secure biopharmaceutical experts in Korea is a task to be solved,” it said. “We should think and work together to create a virtuous-cycle ecosystem that can advance the domestic bio-industry in the process.”

The association advised that one way to replenish the already scarce high-quality manpower is to “bring them from abroad.”

In its executive briefing for 2023, the Ministry of Justice said it would simplify visa issuance for excellent foreign scientific and technological talents in frontier industries, including the semiconductor, to help them live and work in Korea and facilitate their decisions on permanent residence and naturalization.

“Aside from high-quality, core workforce, the industry will find it inevitable to hire a large number of recruits from among college graduates,” the association said. “Therefore, business and government officials should pull their wisdom on training and educating them on practical knowledge and skill required in the field.”