A high-ranking official says “the CJ group orders the expansion of its pipeline”

The CJ Healthcare’s plan to secure money for investment through listing reached a deadlock. CJ Healthcare selected NH INVESTMENT & SECURITIES and SHINHAN INVESTMENT as major companies and has been pushing for IPO (Initial Public Offering) for listing in the first half of last year.

At that time, people were very interested in pharmaceutical and bio. And the pharmaceutical industry has paid attention to its IPO because the company is the affiliate of CJ group.

Some predicted if the company undertakes IPO, the value would be about 1trillion won. But the CJ group ordered the expansion of the pipeline for new medicine and the original plan has been delayed.

The CJ group points out the pipeline of CJ healthcare for new medicine are weak. And IPO should follow after the pipeline is strengthened. Therefore, the plans to actively do overseas expansion and increase R&D investment by securing money after IPO are delayed.

Accordingly, CJ Healthcare will actively look for substances for new medicine. It has made efforts to develop new medicine to do open innovation with domestic ventures and foreign companies on a regular basis.

But it’s not easy to expand the pipeline in a short period of time and it’s not clear whether the company can undertake IPO within this year. CJ Healthcare thinks IPO isn’t an urgent issue. The debt ratio at the time when it had been separated from the mother company was about 70%, but the current ratio is lower than before. Therefore, it doesn’t need to hurry to raise money.

The PR team at CJ Healthcare said, “The need to expand its pipeline has been raised. Because it is the right thing, we are trying to get the new momentum for growth. Nobody knows the exact date for IPO. Currently, we are keeping our eyes on the market situation, but pharmaceutical and bio industry have shrunk compared with last year. But because the debt ratio of our company is low, we don’t need to secure investment money right now.”

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