Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd. has entered into a licensing agreement with Proteina Co., Ltd. to support the development of artificial intelligence-based antibody therapeutics under a government-backed national research and development initiative in South Korea.
The project, titled “Development and Demonstration of Antibody Biopharmaceuticals Using AI Models,” was launched in October 2025 with support from South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare. The initiative is being led by a consortium comprising Samsung Bioepis, Proteina and Professor Minkyung Baek’s research team at the School of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University.
Financial terms related to the national R&D project were not disclosed.
Under the agreement, Samsung Bioepis and Proteina will work together to identify multiple novel antibody drug candidates designed using AI by 2027. Proteina will focus on lead discovery, using its antibody optimization and performance measurement platform to identify and validate potential therapeutic candidates.
Samsung Bioepis will take responsibility for advancing selected candidates through preclinical development and toward investigational new drug application submission. The company also holds an option to license selected programs for clinical development and commercialization. If Samsung Bioepis exercises that option, it will make milestone payments and pay royalties to Proteina under the terms of the agreement.
The collaboration marks a broader move by Samsung Bioepis beyond its established biosimilar business. The company has built its reputation through the development and commercialization of biosimilar medicines across immunology, oncology and ophthalmology, and is now seeking to apply its biologics development and process optimization capabilities to novel antibody therapeutics.
Kyung-Ah Kim, president and chief executive officer of Samsung Bioepis, said the company intends to leverage the expertise developed over the past 14 years in biosimilar development to support the discovery of new medicines.
“We will work closely with Proteina to successfully advance this national project and accelerate the discovery of innovative medicines for patients with unmet medical needs,” Kim said.
Proteina’s platform is designed to speed up the antibody validation process, which can traditionally take several months. According to the company, its proprietary ultra-high-speed and high-throughput technology can reduce this stage to as little as two weeks while screening more than 10,000 antibody sequences per week.
AI-driven antibody discovery is increasingly attracting investment across the pharmaceutical industry as companies seek to shorten early-stage research timelines, improve candidate selection and reduce the cost of developing biologic medicines. The Samsung Bioepis-Proteina collaboration could provide a model for combining AI-enabled discovery technologies with established biologics development capabilities.