Georit Energy Changes Major Shareholder to Aprogen... "Developing the First Root Cure for Parkinson's Disease"

Georit Energy has completed the change of its largest shareholder to Aprogen, a biosimilar specialist company, and is making a full-scale entry into the degenerative brain disease treatment market.

Georit Energy announced on the 9th that its largest shareholder changed from N2Tech and six others to Aprogen. Aprogen's shareholding ratio is 17.22% (27,349,049 shares).

On the 10th, at the extraordinary general meeting, Georit Energy plans to appoint Kim Jae-seop, CEO of Aprogen, and Kang Jong-su, CEO of GBPS, as inside directors, and Sung No-hyun, former director of the Seoul National University Genetic Engineering Research Institute, as an outside director. The company name will also be changed to AptNeuroScience, and new drug development will be added to the business objectives.

On the 5th of last month, Georit Energy signed a contract to acquire three patents related to Parkinson's disease treatments developed by Professor Jung Jong-kyung of Seoul National University for 5.4 billion KRW to enter the Parkinson's disease treatment market. Professor Jung Jong-kyung, director of the Seoul National University Genetic Engineering Research Institute, is one of the world's leading scientists in the field of Parkinson's disease.

He has devoted the past 25 years to identifying the causes of Parkinson's disease and developing treatments, with over 110 research papers published as first or corresponding author in top-tier international journals. Once the concurrent appointment approval process currently underway at Seoul National University is completed, Professor Jung is expected to be appointed as the head and president of Georit Energy's brain disease treatment division.

Aprogen is confident that the Parkinson's disease treatment substance for which Georit Energy has secured patent rights will be superior to any Parkinson's disease treatment drug developed so far.

An Aprogen official said, "All currently used Parkinson's disease treatments only temporarily alleviate symptoms and do not prevent the death of dopamine neurons. In contrast, the substance discovered by Professor Jung Jong-kyung almost perfectly prevented the death of dopamine neurons in various Parkinson's disease animal model experiments. In other words, it could be the first fundamental treatment to halt the progression of Parkinson's disease."

With confidence in the success of the Parkinson's disease treatment substance, Aprogen is aggressively increasing its stake in Georit Energy. In addition to the approximately 27.35 million existing shares acquired this time, Aprogen's holding company, GBase, has also signed a contract to acquire convertible bonds (CB) worth 45 billion KRW, which is 45% of the 100 billion KRW CB investment. The number of shares to be secured upon CB conversion is about 31.6 million shares.

The official said, "The Aprogen Group can secure about 109 million shares of Georit Energy, raising its shareholding ratio to at least 36.3%."