Fujifilm took another step in its strategy of building its biosimilars business with the announcement this week that it had reached an agreement with the biopharmaceutical company Kyowa Hakko Kiron to form a 50–50 joint venture for biosimilars. The move is the latest by Fujifilm, begun earlier this year with the acquisition of the former Merck Biomanufacturing Network, to position itself in the biosimilars market.

The joint venture with Kyowa Hakko Kiron is expected to begin in the spring of 2012. In April of this year, Fujifilm completed its acquisition of the former Merck Biomanufacturing Network, which provides contract biologics manufacturing. The acquisition included facilities in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and Billingham, United Kingdom. Merck & Co. had acquired the Billingham facilities through its 2009 acquisition of the contract manufacturer Avecia and the Research Triangle Park facilities as part of its acquisition of Schering-Plough in 2009. Diosynth was the former contract manufacturing activities of Organon, the pharmaceutical business of the Dutch chemical company Akzo Nobel. Schering-Plough acquired Organon in 2007, and Merck & Co. acquired Schering-Plough in 2009. Merck combined the UK and US contract biologic activities into the Merck Biomanufacturing Network, which was acquired by Fujifilm in 2011, and later named Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies.  Also in 2011, Fujifilm formed a partnership with Mutsubishi for contract biologics manufacturing under which Mitsubishi took a 20% equity interest in FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnologies.

In addition to Fujifilm, other nonpharma players have joined the biosimilars fray. In February of this year, Samsung Electronics entered into a strategic partnership with the CRO Quintiles as part of Samsung’s entry into the biopharmaceuticals market. The companies formed a new joint-venture company to provide biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing services in South Korea, with Samsung owning 90% and Quintiles 10%. At the time of the announcement in February, Samsung said it plans to commercialize biosimilars by 2016 and to expand into innovative biologics in the future. The joint-venture company plans to construct a biopharmaceutical manufacturing plant in South Korea with the goal of beginning full-scale operations in April 2013.

In another deal, in June 2011, Merck & Co. partnered with the Korean chemical company, Hanwha Chemical, to develop and commercialize HD203, a biosimilar candidate of Enbrel (etanercept). Under the agreement, Merck will conduct clinical development and be responsible for manufacturing. In addition, upon marketing approval, Merck will commercialize HD203 globally, except for in Korea and Turkey, where Hanwha retains marketing rights. In return, Hanwha received an upfront payment from Merck and will be eligible for additional payments associated with milestones for technology transfer and regulatory progress as well as tiered royalties on sales.

It is said that “politics makes for strange bedfellows,” but in these instances, the biosimilars market is engendering the entry of some nontraditional players and unexpected alliances as well.