DND Pharmatech's Demand Forecast 'Hits' Despite Stock Market Slump

Offering price fixed at 33,000 KRW... Exceeds upper limit of expected range by 27%
Reflects expectations for obesity treatment under development
Subscription for general investors on 22-23rd

As the conflict between Iran and Israel intensifies, increasing preference for safe assets is causing volatility in the domestic stock market. DND Pharmatech, preparing for its initial public offering (IPO), secured an offering price above the expected range in the demand forecast despite external negative factors, thanks to various positive developments. DND Pharmatech will conduct subscription for general investors over two days from the 22nd to the 23rd.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 22nd, DND Pharmatech conducted a demand forecast targeting domestic and foreign institutional investors over five business days from the 12th to the 18th, and finalized the offering price at 33,000 KRW. Considering the initial price range was set between 22,000 and 26,000 KRW, this is 26.9% higher than the upper limit.

A total of 2,181 institutions participated in the demand forecast, recording a competition rate of 848.5 to 1. 99.6% of the total participating volume offered prices exceeding 26,000 KRW. The KOSDAQ index fell by 5.5% from the beginning of this month to the 18th. This was due to the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel and growing concerns over delays in the timing of the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts, which shrank investor sentiment.

The preference for safe assets over risky assets strengthened, raising concerns that it could negatively impact DND Pharmatech's demand forecast. Some in Yeouido predicted that the IPO market, which had acted as a black hole for market funds over the past year, might slow down for a while.

Reflecting the market atmosphere, DND Pharmatech intensified its investor relations (IR) activities. DND Pharmatech is a bio company developing new drugs for metabolic disorder-related nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (MASH) in the GLP-1 oral drug category. GLP-1 (Glucagon-like peptide 1) is a type of hormone secreted in the small intestine during food intake, functioning to increase insulin synthesis and secretion, suppress glucagon secretion, and delay digestive absorption processes. Initially developed as a diabetes treatment, GLP-1 is expanding its indications to obesity and MASH treatments.

Founded in 2014, DND Pharmatech is developing chronic disease treatments using GLP-1 peptide derivatives. It holds multiple GLP-1-based pipelines, including oral obesity treatments and injectable MASH treatments.

The oral obesity treatment demonstrated weight loss effects in preclinical animal experiments. In September 2021, DND Pharmatech signed a license-out contract worth $192 million (approximately 250 billion KRW) with Salubris, a Chinese pharmaceutical company specializing in metabolic diseases. Salubris plans to start Phase 1 clinical trials in China in the second half of this year.

Seulgi Lee, CEO of DND Pharmatech, said, "Since our establishment, we have focused on developing GLP-1 peptide new drugs. We aim to rapidly achieve new drug commercialization centered on metabolic diseases such as obesity and MASH through our listing on the KOSDAQ market."

Jongseon Park, a researcher at Eugene Investment & Securities, explained, "DND Pharmatech is jointly developing obesity treatments with Metsera, an overseas investment institution." Metsera has secured $290 million in development funds from major U.S. venture capital firms and various institutional investors.