Kim Sung-chul, CEO of KPS Bio Division, to Convert All Held CBs... "Expecting Sales Growth from Breast Cancer New Drugs"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] BigThink Therapeutics, a subsidiary of KPS, has obtained sales approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for the breast cancer drug Nerlynx® (Nerlynx®), and Kim Sungchul, head of the Bio Business Division, will convert all of his convertible bonds (CB) into shares. This is interpreted as an expectation of sales growth for the first anticancer pipeline.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 21st, CEO Kim Sungchul exercised his conversion rights for unsecured private placement CBs worth 4.8 billion KRW, securing an additional 550,458 shares of KPS. The conversion price per share of the CB is 8,720 KRW, and the new shares are scheduled to be listed on the 10th of next month. This corresponds to 3.06% of the total issued shares of approximately 17.9 million shares.

As a result, the largest shareholder Doomim (including related parties) will see their stake increase from the existing 24.14% to 26.4%. CEO Kim Sungchul had held CBs worth 4.8 billion KRW of the company through exercising a call option (put right) around mid-December last year.

Earlier on the 19th, the biopharmaceutical subsidiary BigThink obtained domestic sales approval for the breast cancer drug Nerlynx® (active ingredient neratinib maleate). Nerlynx is the first extended adjuvant oral therapy that can be administered alone to patients with early breast cancer who are positive for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and hormone receptors. The drug was introduced from the U.S. company Puma Biotechnology, Inc. in April last year.

Kim Hayong, CEO of KPS, said, "It is encouraging that we secured official product approval for the first anticancer drug just over a year after entering the new drug development business, providing new treatment options for domestic breast cancer patients," adding, "We will accelerate new drug development through our bio-subsidiaries Algok Bio and BigThink based on this first product approval."