Samsung Biologics said it expected to post annual sales of more than 3.6 trillion won this year, up more than 20 percent from the previous year.

In a public filing on Thursday, Samsung Biologics said it has raised its annual sales growth outlook for 2023 by more than 20 percent, instead of the previous 15-20 percent. Samsung Biologics' 2023 sales forecast went up to 3.6 trillion won from 3.53 trillion won.

This is the second time the company has raised its sales growth outlook since April. 

In April, Samsung Biologics raised its expected year-on-year sales growth rate for 2023 to 15-20 percent (3.53 trillion won) from 10-15 percent (3.38 trillion won) in January.

Samsung BioLogics attributed the rosier revenue growth outlook to the successful utilization of its Plant 4. The faster-than-expected increase in the utilization rate of Plant 4 resulted from large contract manufacturing organization (CMO) contracts with multinational pharmaceutical firms, the company said.

According to Samsung BioLogics, sales from the Plant 4 will be fully reflected in its third-quarter earnings.

Samsung BioLogics said that since the first contract, Big Pharma firms have been strengthening their partnerships by expanding contracted products or increasing the production scale of existing contracted volumes.

Novartis signed the main contract with Samsung Biologics in July this year to increase the production scale by about five times (511 billion won),  a year after signing a letter of intent (LOI) worth 100 billion won in June last year. 

In addition, Samsung Biologics has signed a total of eight expansion contracts including those with GSK, Eli Lilly, Roche, Pfizer, and Novartis as of September. The total contract size is 986.2 billion won.

Meanwhile, Samsung BioLogics recently announced that it ranked second in the Healthcare & Life Sciences sector on the "World's Most Trusted Companies" list released by Newsweek and data research company Statista.

The survey included 1,000 companies across 23 sectors in 21 countries around the world, and nearly 70,000 consumers, investors, and employees were asked to rate their trust in companies.