[Bio Shaking the Market] Helixmith Completely Liquidates Venture Capital Golden Helix

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] Bio company Helixmith has completely wound up the venture capital it established two years ago. This is analyzed to be because it became difficult to proceed with investment projects after losing market trust due to clinical failures of its main pipelines.

The company has never properly conducted business and has no sales, but has incurred net losses every year. Even after deciding to liquidate the corporation, net losses continued. Therefore, it is expected that Helixmith will find it difficult to recover all of its initial investment capital.

According to the related industry on the 10th, Helixmith’s subsidiary Golden Helix was liquidated and closed on January 24. It was 18 months since its establishment in August 2019. Earlier, on March 12 last year, Golden Helix had resolved to dissolve at a shareholders’ meeting.

Capture of Helixmith homepage.

Golden Helix, a venture capital, is a 100% subsidiary established by Helixmith with an investment of 3.2 billion KRW. It was established with the goal of discovering and nurturing promising bio companies related to anticancer drugs and gene therapies.

The CEO of Golden Helix was Helixmith CEO Yoo Seungshin. Also, Kim Honggeun, the eldest son of Helixmith CEO Kim Sunyoung, is known to have worked at Golden Helix. Mr. Kim is currently registered as a shareholder of Helixmith’s spin-off subsidiaries Neuromyon and Catexcel.

Since its establishment, Golden Helix effectively entered a state of business suspension after the negative announcement of clinical results for Helixmith’s diabetic neuropathy gene therapy Engensis (VM202). This is analyzed to be because it lost market trust due to the main business’s clinical failure, making proper fundraising impossible.

Ultimately, about eight months after its establishment in March last year, Golden Helix voluntarily returned its startup investment company license and resolved to dissolve at a shareholders’ meeting. About ten months after the dissolution resolution, the corporate liquidation was completed.

Helixmith is expected to recover about 3 billion KRW from the liquidation of Golden Helix. Although it initially invested 3.2 billion KRW to establish it, there have been no sales so far, and only costs of 100 million KRW in 2019 and 66 million KRW up to the third quarter of last year were incurred.

Although there were no sales, costs are presumed to have occurred due to rent and labor costs. The company was asked about the cause of Golden Helix’s net loss but did not respond.

Meanwhile, Helixmith is tentatively estimated to have recorded an operating loss of 71.1 billion KRW on a consolidated basis last year. This is an increase of 70% compared to the same period the previous year. During the same period, sales decreased by 3.4% to 4.3 billion KRW, and net loss decreased by 23.1% to 83.9 billion KRW.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.