[IPO Spotlight] Voronoi's First 'Unicorn Special' Listing... "Aiming for FDA Approval of 4 Therapeutics Within 5 Years"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] Global drug design specialist Voronoi is knocking on the door of the KOSDAQ market as the first domestic unicorn (market-evaluated excellent company) to list under a special exemption. Voronoi announced plans to expand its pipeline to 20 within the next five years and obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for four therapeutic drugs.

On the 14th, Kim Daegwon, CEO of Voronoi, held an online investor relations (IR) meeting and made these announcements. Founded in 2015, Voronoi develops targeted therapies that selectively bind only to disease-causing kinases among the approximately 550 kinases responsible for intracellular signal transduction.

CEO Kim explained, “Kinases can be likened to traffic lights inside and outside cells, and when these traffic lights malfunction, diseases such as cancer occur. Voronoi is a company that researches and develops kinase inhibitors?substances that selectively bind to malfunctioning traffic light proteins to eliminate the cause of disease.”

Voronoi solved the problem of existing inhibitors failing to precisely target only the cancer-causing mutant proteins and instead affecting proteins responsible for normal functions, causing side effects, through its core technology called 'Kinase Profiling.'

This involves experimental data on whether potential candidate substances bind to 468 kinase targets, and Voronoi has built a global top-level database (DB) of over 4,000 compounds with diverse scaffolds. Traditional drug development verifies candidate substance activity against only one target, often resulting in toxic side effects during clinical development. Voronoi significantly enhanced selectivity by identifying substances that react with target proteins and are non-toxic from the DB at the early R&D stage and applying them to drug design.

Additionally, Voronoi combines artificial intelligence (AI) and wet lab experiments in its advanced ‘Voronomics’ platform, enabling it to derive pipelines three times faster than competitors within 1 to 1.5 years, while securing blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration technology that surpasses global competitors.

In particular, Voronoi’s developed 'EGFR mutant non-small cell lung cancer treatment' achieves a blood-brain barrier penetration rate of 70-100%, significantly higher than global competitors, expected to provide new treatment options for patients with brain metastatic lung cancer.

Since 2020, Voronoi has licensed out a total of four new drug candidates (pipelines), three overseas and one domestic. ▲In October 2020, it licensed the 'EGFR Exon20 INS-targeted non-small cell lung cancer treatment' to U.S. Nasdaq-listed Oric Pharmaceuticals; ▲In August last year, the 'DYRK1A autoimmune and degenerative brain disease treatment' to U.S. Nasdaq-listed Brickell Biotech; ▲In November last year, the 'MPS1-targeted breast cancer and other solid tumor treatment' to U.S. Pyramid Biosciences.

The cumulative total milestone amount from the three global technology exports is $1.7905 billion (approximately 2.1 trillion KRW). Voronoi received 15.4 billion KRW as a signing bonus from Oric Pharmaceuticals and 5.9 billion KRW from Brickell Biotech. Additional milestone payments will be received as research and commercialization progress.

Voronoi plans to use the funds raised through this public offering for R&D and operational expenses to establish a foundation for sustainable growth capable of generating multiple pipelines annually.

CEO Kim stated, “Even after listing, based on Voronoi’s outstanding R&D capabilities and speed, we plan to expand clinical pipelines to 20 within five years, including those developed by technology transfer partners, and continue technology exports to global major pharmaceutical companies. Our goal is to become the originator that obtains accelerated FDA approval for four genotype-directed cancer treatments with clearly identified carcinogenic mutations within five years.”

Meanwhile, Voronoi plans to offer a total of 2 million shares through this public offering. The expected offering price is between 50,000 and 65,000 KRW per share, with a total offering amount of approximately 100 to 130 billion KRW. After a two-day demand forecast on the 14th and 15th, subscription will proceed on the 21st and 22nd, followed by listing on the KOSDAQ market on the 30th. The joint lead underwriters are Korea Investment & Securities and Mirae Asset Securities.

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