Bio, healthcare companies set to raise momentum for new listings

South Korea’s initial public offering (IPO) market is expected to gain momentum starting this month, with a series of bio and healthcare companies set to begin public subscription procedures.

According to the financial investment industry on Monday, not a single company debuted on the stock market last month. This contrasts sharply with the same period last year, when as many as 11 companies – including LG CNS – were newly listed.

Beginning this month, however, promising bio and healthcare companies are entering the IPO pipeline one after another, which is expected to reinvigorate the market.

Kanaph Therapeutics Co., which develops novel drugs using large-scale human genomic data, plans to open retail subscriptions for its shares on Thursday and Friday.

The drug developer says it has built a discovery platform that identifies disease-linked genetic targets and applies optimal therapeutic modalities to construct its pipeline.

It has signed joint R&D and technology transfer agreements with several pharmaceutical partners, including Lotte Biologics, GC Biopharma Corp, and OSCOTEC Inc.

IMBiologics Corp., which focuses on antibody-based therapeutics, is holding a bookbuilding session through Friday to determine its final offering price.

Its autoimmune and immuno-oncology candidates, IMB-101 and IMB-102, have been licensed to U.S.-based Navigator Medicines.

Meanwhile, Mezoo, an active remote patient monitoring platform developer founded by researchers from Yonsei University’s campus in Wonju, Gangwon province, plans to forecast institutional demand. The company previously secured Korea’s first commercial reference case in the aRPM segment.

As early-stage biotech firms with limited revenue, the companies are seeking listings under Korea’s technology-special track, which permits R&D-driven businesses without stable profits to go public.

The review process has been stringent. Kanaph Therapeutics amended its registration statement four times, while IMBiologics and Mezoo each revised theirs twice.

Both Kanaph Therapeutics and IMBiologics lowered their earnings projections during the review process.