Celltrion (068270.KS) said Wednesday it is fully rolling out artificial intelligence (AI) across its key business areas, from drug development to manufacturing and office operations, to boost work efficiency. Through its AI transformation (AX) drive, the company plans to automate repetitive tasks and accelerate reductions in working hours and costs.
Among the three key business areas, drug development is where AI is being most actively applied. Celltrion established a dedicated AI-based drug development organization last year and is gradually applying AI to the discovery, validation and optimization of new drug target candidates. The company expects to dramatically shorten the drug development period, which typically takes more than 10 years, and to significantly reduce costs. To this end, Celltrion is providing "reskilling" training for its in-house researchers to strengthen data analysis and AI capabilities, and is also expanding open innovation with external AI specialist firms.
In the manufacturing area, the company plans to build a smart factory using physical AI. Celltrion intends to raise the level of factory automation at its planned new active pharmaceutical ingredient plants No. 4 and No. 5 in Songdo by introducing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), automated logistics warehouses, intelligent robotic arms and collaborative robots, and manufacturing management software. The plan is to automate standardized tasks by the time the plants are completed, and afterwards to apply AI to high-value-added decision-making tasks to maximize production efficiency. Over the long term, the company aims to unmanned operation of highly complex tasks through humanoid robots.
In the office area, Celltrion plans to continuously expand the scope of AI application beyond existing functions such as data analysis, dashboard construction and insight generation. According to the company, a simulation that applied a chatbot to its electronic document management system (EDMS) showed that the time required for simple tasks such as document searches and document comparisons is expected to be reduced by about 80% to 90% from current levels.
Celltrion's AX strategy will proceed on a two-track basis, combining a bottom-up approach led by frontline employees with a top-down approach focused on company-wide solution development. "The AI technology that we have begun rolling out in earnest this year is substantially broadening the scope of work automation and continuously improving work efficiency," a Celltrion official said. "We will leap forward as a global integrated pharmaceutical company that has completed an AI value chain spanning the entire business process, from drug development onward."
