Lotte Biologics Songdo Plant 1 near completion

Company starts approval of use process with the 20,000L production base near completion

Combined with Syracuse plant, company to secure 160,000L capacity…dual-site strategy takes shape

Unveils actual plant to be showcased at BIO USA, expanding customer touchpoints

Lotte Biologics Songdo Biocampus

Lotte Biologics’ global CDMO business strategy is taking shape along with the near completion of the company’s Songdo Plant 1 at its Songdo Bio Campus.

Lotte Biologics, which has continued order acquisition activities from its Syracuse Bio Campus in the US, plans to fully launch a “dual-site” operating system connecting North America and Asia upon completion of its Songdo Plant 1.

Songdo Plant 1 in approval of use process… Production base becomes reality

Lotte Biologics is known to have recently completed construction of Plant 1 at its Songdo Bio Campus in Incheon and applied for use approval with the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority. Plant 1, which is located in Block Ki20 of Songdo International City District 11, is a 120,000L antibody drug production facility.

Once the use approval process is completed, Lotte Biologics will have a total production capacity of 160,000L, which includes its existing 40,000L biopharmaceutical production plant in Syracuse, U.S.

The broader picture for the Songdo Bio Campus is also becoming more concrete. Lotte Biologics is pursuing plans to build two additional production facilities in Songdo of the same scale as Plant 1. If all three plants are built as planned, the company will secure a total production infrastructure of 400,000L, including the Syracuse plant’s capacity.

However, completion of the plant does not immediately mean commercial production. After use approval, the company must go through production preparation steps, including trial runs, validation, and quality system checks, before responding to regulatory on-site inspections and client technical due diligence audits. The company had previously set the first half of 2027 as its target for commercial production, and with the recent acceleration of the completion schedule, it appears to be speeding up subsequent preparation procedures as well.

Industry observers believe the visible progress toward completion of Songdo Plant 1 will become a meaningful turning point for Lotte Biologics’ business development activities. Previously, the Songdo plant had been introduced mainly as a mid- to long-term investment plan or through renderings, but the company has now entered a stage where it can hold discussions with customers based on the plant’s actual production facilities and process configurations.

First real-world Songdo marketing activities held at BIO USA

Lotte Biologics plans to highlight this momentum at the 2026 BIO International Convention (BIO USA) to be held in San Diego, US, this month. The company has participated in BIO USA for five consecutive years since 2022.

This year’s independent exhibition booth will include private meeting rooms for discussions with global customers and networking spaces for visitors.

Notably, the company plans to disclose actual photo and video content showcasing its Songdo Bio Campus Plant 1. It will introduce the production process, floor-by-floor structure, and key equipment, directly demonstrating its large-scale commercial production capabilities and manufacturing competitiveness for customer-specific solutions.

Lotte Biologics BIO International 2026 booth overview

For the company, this year’s BIO USA is expected to serve as an opportunity to leverage the Songdo plant as a tangible asset rather than a simple investment plan. While the Songdo plant had previously been described as a future production base to potential clients, the company can now provide prospective clients with a detailed look at the plant’s facility and equipment, facilitating more concrete production discussions.

The dual-site strategy is also becoming clearer, in which Syracuse will serve as a one-stop CDMO hub centered on antibodies and ADCs, and Songdo as a large-scale production base. The ability to utilize both a North American manufacturing base and an Asian large-scale manufacturing base could serve as a differentiating point in global customer acquisition.

Workforce expands in line with operational preparations

Preparations for plant operation are also understood to lead to workforce expansion. Lotte Biologics has proactively secured production, quality, and operations personnel during the construction period of Songdo Plant 1. This is because once the physical plant is complete, initial operating personnel must be in place for the company to immediately proceed with trial runs, equipment qualification, and quality system checks.

According to industry sources, Lotte Biologics is expected to continue hiring through the end of the year. If preparations for Songdo Plant 1 operation are followed by construction of additional plants, demand for production, quality, and engineering personnel is expected to increase further.

This year’s contract wins also support this trend. In January, Lotte Biologics signed a biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing agreement with Rakuten Medical for the global clinical and commercial production of a photoimmunotherapy-based head and neck cancer treatment. The contract includes the provision of bioconjugation services using the company’s ADC facility in Syracuse.

Also, in April, the company signed a CDMO contract with a US-based oncology biotech company for antibody drug substance production and process development. Lotte Biologics agreed to support production of antibody materials needed for late-stage global clinical trials and large-scale process optimization at its Syracuse Bio Campus.

In May, it also signed an additional antibody drug production contract with the UK biotech company Ottimo Pharma. The agreement expands the scope of cooperation following a contract signed in June last year and includes not only the production of drug substance for Ottimo Pharma’s new drug Jankistomig, but also process development.

Lotte Biologics’ next task is how quickly it can convert Songdo Plant 1 into a production facility capable of responding to regulatory inspections and customer audits after use approval. Given the nature of the CDMO business, a new plant cannot secure order competitiveness through physical completion alone. Production equipment qualification, quality operating systems, experience responding to regulatory authorities, and the ability to handle customer technical audits must all be in place.

Using the Songdo plant as a smart factory, the company aims to strengthen production efficiency and quality management systems. It also plans to secure process flexibility to respond to diverse production needs from potential global customers. Expansion of production and quality personnel is also being conducted in line with plant operation preparations.

Lotte Biologics has previously stated its goal of reaching KRW 1.5 trillion in sales by 2030 and becoming one of the world’s Top 10 CDMO companies. With the visible completion of Songdo Plant 1 and its participation in BIO USA, the company appears to be expanding global customer touchpoints to support that goal.

A Lotte Biologics official said, “With the completion of Songdo Bio Campus Plant 1 imminent, we are now able to introduce our competitive production capabilities to potential global customers. Based on our dual-site operating system connecting Syracuse and Songdo, we will further strengthen our global CDMO competitiveness.”