Aprogen, Merger Proposal Approved at General Meeting... "Momentum for Large-Scale Investment Attraction"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Aprogen, Korea's first bio unicorn, will be listed on the KOSPI market through a merger with its affiliate.

Aprogen Medicine and the unlisted company Aprogen held an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders on the 14th and approved the merger. The merger date is set for the 15th of next month, and the stock listing date is scheduled for August 5. A listed company with total assets of 540 billion KRW and about 700 bio-specialized personnel will be created.

Through the merger, the unlisted Aprogen will be absorbed by the KOSPI-listed Aprogen Medicine, which will change its name to "Aprogen." At the extraordinary general meeting, Aprogen Medicine passed a resolution to appoint all registered executives of the unlisted Aprogen as executives of the merged company. CEO Seungho Lee, who has led the unlisted Aprogen, will lead the merged company. CEO Seungho Lee has over 20 years of experience as an investment banking expert at Morgan Stanley and Nomura Securities, achieving multiple large-scale M&A and investment attraction successes. He joined Aprogen as CEO in August last year.

Aprogen owns a GMP factory in the Osong Bio-Science Complex, Chungcheongbuk-do, capable of producing 3,000 kg of antibody drugs annually, ranking fifth in the world based on maximum annual production capacity. It is the world's largest factory using the state-of-the-art perfusion culture method, an animal cell culture technique.

Its pipeline includes biosimilars for five types of drugs: Remicade, Herceptin, Rituxan, Humira, and Avastin, as well as four types of new bio-drugs under development: a dual fusion receptor therapeutic for degenerative arthritis, an antibody therapy for triple-negative breast cancer, a bispecific antibody therapy for acute leukemia, and an immune-oncology fusion antibody therapy that activates macrophages.

CEO Seungho Lee stated, "Through the merger, the company has expanded its scale and established a stable financial structure. With Aprogen Biologics, the production corporation located in the Osong Bio-Science Complex, becoming a 100% subsidiary, we have gained a strong synergy effect by enabling efficient and swift technical cooperation and managerial decision-making across all stages from antibody and biopharmaceutical development to production."

Aprogen plans to secure large-scale funding necessary to accelerate clinical development of its biopharmaceutical pipeline following the merger. It is currently in contact with strategic investors, including various institutional investors and leading companies. The company intends to broadly review transaction structures to actively meet investors' requests for investment attraction.

Going forward, as a listed company, Aprogen plans to strengthen its IR organization and channels to communicate quickly and closely with investors and the market about major management activities and achievements, such as the progress of its development pipeline, through active IR activities.

Over the past 20 years, Aprogen has developed outstanding cell line development capabilities through independent research and development. It has adopted an advanced production process using the excellent perfusion culture method in terms of productivity. Based on its technological superiority, Aprogen plans to lead the development of the biopharmaceutical sector by developing not only competitively priced biosimilars but also innovative antibody and protein new drugs.