Yuhan Corporation Invests Additional 10 Billion KRW in April Bio... Becomes Second Largest Shareholder

"Additional Investment to Accelerate Joint Research"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Ji-hee] Yuhan Corporation announced on the 23rd that it has made an additional investment of 10 billion KRW in AprilBio, increasing its existing stake to become the second largest shareholder.

Founded in 2013, AprilBio is an antibody drug specialist company developing innovative new drugs in various therapeutic areas using its proprietary human antibody library (HuDVFab) technology and the sustained-release platform technology SAFA, which extends the half-life by utilizing antibody fragments. This year, it is preparing for Phase 1 clinical trials in the US for the autoimmune disease treatment (CD40L target) APB-A1, and is developing the preclinical stage inflammatory autoimmune disease treatment (IL-18 target) APB-R3, and male infertility treatment (FSH target) APB-R2.

Recently, AprilBio decided on a third-party allotment paid-in capital increase worth 10 billion KRW targeting Yuhan Corporation. Last year, it raised 18 billion KRW in Series B investment, during which Yuhan Corporation also invested 3 billion KRW as a strategic investor (SI) in AprilBio, acquiring a 4.89% stake.

Since then, Yuhan Corporation and AprilBio have signed a "Joint Research New Drug Development Business Agreement" and are strengthening research cooperation. Through this additional investment, the two companies plan to further solidify their partnership.

Yuhan Corporation explained, "The excellence of AprilBio's proprietary platform technology SAFA has been recognized, and we decided on the additional investment to further accelerate joint research utilizing this technology in the future."

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