This photo provided by Samsung Biologics Co. shows the company's pharmaceutical production plant. Yonhap

Samsung Biologics, the biotech arm of South Korea's Samsung Group, said Friday it has tentatively agreed to work with multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing.

The company said in a regulatory filing that it signed a letter of intent on the cooperation in a deal valued at around US$350 million, approximately 29 percent of its total sales in 2021. It did not reveal other details of the deal.

Samsung Biologics said the two companies exchanged a separate letter of intent in May last year to collaborate on strategic biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

The size of the deal, which was not disclosed at that time, has recently increased "due to growing demand" from AstraZeneca, to a point where the South Korean company became legally bound to report it to financial authorities, the company said.

The two companies have expanded their partnership in recent years since they signed a long-term strategic agreement on producing drug substances and products in September 2020.

Samsung Biologics manufactures AstraZeneca's COVID-19 long-acting antibody (LAAB) combination, AZD7442, as well as a cancer immunotherapy product. (Yonhap)