Korea Exchange grants preliminary approval on the 4th Subscriptions to the public offering will be held on March 9th and 10th

Expected share price between 49,000 to 65,000 KRW should generate up to 1.5 trillion KRW in capital

SK bioscience announced on the 5th that SK bioscience has submitted a securities report to the Financial Services Commission for KOSPI listing. The initial public offering (IPO) of 22.95 million shares, with a target price range from 49,000 to 65,000 KRW, will raise about 1.49 trillion KRW in capital.

SK bioscience expects to confirm its IPO price with the lead underwriter based on demand from domestic and foreign institutional investors on March 4th and 5th with allotment of shares on March 9th and 10th to complete the initial public offering by March.

NH Investment & Securities Co. and Mirae Asset Daewoo Securities Co. are the underwriters for the IPO.

SK bioscience will utilize the capital from this IPO for sustainable growth of the technically advanced global vaccine and bio company that will increase shareholder value.

Specifically, funds from the public offering will be used for △expansion of research institutes and production facilities for additional CMO projects such as biomedical products, △development of new pipelines such as mRNA platforms and immune enhancers, △formation of partnerships with foreign governments, and state-run organizations for technical cooperation, and △expansion of the basic vaccine portfolio.

A representative for SK bioscience said, “By utilizing the R&D platform and biopharmaceutical process and production platform accumulated in the process of vaccine development, manufacturing, and commercialization, we will expand our product line and diversify our business,” and “with the funds raised through the listing, we will speed up our entry into the global market.”

SK bioscience is a vaccine company spun off from SK chemicals in July 2018 and is equipped with advanced capabilities across the entire vaccine value chain.

SK bioscience’s self-developed flu and chickenpox vaccines have acquired WHO PQ (Pre-qualification) certification and are currently exported worldwide. In 2018, a technology export contract was signed for the application of flu vaccine cell culture production technologies on the “Universal Flu Vaccine” being developed by Sanofi Pasteur.

SK bioscience is recently developing a COVID-19 preventive vaccine, which has entered clinical trials, in collaboration with domestic and foreign institutions such as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations(CEPI). SK bioscience also signed an agreement for the CMO and CDMO of COVID-19 vaccines developed by global companies such as AstraZeneca and Novavax.

Last month, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(KDCA) wased as the sole agency for the task of establishing and operating a domestic distribution management system for COVID-19 vaccines, including the distribution, storage, cold chain establishment, and management of imports and exports of COVID-19 vaccines in Korea.

In addition, SK bioscience is working with a number of global companies and international organizations to develop blockbuster vaccines. A next-generation pneumococcal vaccine co-developed with Sanofi Pasteur is currently undergoing Phase II clinical trials in the United States, a pediatric enteritis vaccine co-developed with the Program for Application Technology in Health (PATH) with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is going through Phase III clinical trials, and a new typhoid vaccine developed by the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) has been submitted for approval.