Samsung Invests $2B in Biopharmaceuticals

Today in international tech news: Samsung -- the smartphone-TV-camera Samsung -- is investing at least $2 billion in biopharmaceuticals. Also: Nintendo apologizes for its exclusion of gay options in an upcoming videogame; unprecedented technology will take center field at the World Cup; Comcast courts partnerships with Asian cellphone operators; and an Australian state will fine anyone using Uber.

Samsung Group, the world's leading smartphone maker, is investing at least US$2 billion in... biopharmaceuticals?

With this foray into the drug industry, Samsung hopes to become a major player in biotechnology, which is expected to be a booming industry in coming years.

A key component of this play is so-called biosimilars -- cheap versions of brand-name biotechnology drugs that no longer are protected by patents. Samsung plan to sell its first biosimilar product, a version of the arthritis therapy drug Enbrel, in Europe in 2016