[Market Focus] Pharos iBio Surges on Investment from Major Bio-specialized VCs

Pharos iBio is showing strong performance. This is believed to be influenced by the news that the company has attracted investment from major large venture capital (VC) firms with expertise in the bio sector.

As of 9:50 a.m. on December 4, Pharos iBio is trading at 11,450 won, up 21.29% from the previous day.

On the previous day, Pharos iBio announced that it had decided to issue convertible bonds (CB) worth 19 billion won for the first time since its listing. Major domestic large VCs with expertise and scale in the bio and healthcare sectors participated in this round of investment.

The market's attention was also drawn by the participation of Aju IB Investment, which has a high proportion of bio-specialized investments, in addition to existing investors (DSC Investment, Company K Partners, Korea Investment Partners, and listing manager Korea Investment & Securities). Furthermore, the lower limit for the conversion price adjustment (refixing) is set at 8,000 won, and it is evaluated that the company has been recognized with a corporate value of at least 100 billion won in terms of market capitalization by large VCs with top-level bio-specialized investment professionals in Korea.

Pharos iBio plans to use the funds raised for the following purposes: ▲ development of combination therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treatment with 'Lasmotinib' and promotion of global technology licensing ▲ Phase 1 clinical trial for the refractory solid tumor treatment 'PHI-501' ▲ advancement of its proprietary AI drug development platform 'Chemiverse' and diversification of new pipelines.

Lasmotinib successfully obtained the global Phase 1 clinical study report (CSR) this year and is about to enter global Phase 2 clinical trials. PHI-501 received approval for a Phase 1 clinical trial plan (IND) from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in June and is set to begin clinical trials.