Encouraged by investors' growing interests in the biopharmaceutical industry amid the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, local drugmakers are going all out to secure financial resources through massive bond issuance, market watchers said Thursday.

Their moves aim to invest in new businesses and strengthen research and development to speed up developing new drugs.

According to financial market sources, seven companies -- Chong Kun Dang, Chong Kun Dang Holdings, GC, Kwangdong Pharmaceutical, Daewoong Pharmaceutical, Suheung, and Samsung Biologics -- have issued public bonds worth more than 1 trillion won ($841 million) this year.

The 2021 figure represents a sharp increase from last year when three companies issued public bonds worth 745 billion won.

Industry insiders pay close attention to Chong Kun Dang's large-scale public bond issuance as the company has been operating without debt since its establishment. The company’s issuance of public bonds totaled 100 billion won -- 80 billion won for three-year bonds and 20 billion won for five-year bonds. It was the first time that the company issued public bonds.

Chong Kun Dang Holdings, the parent company, also issued 50 billion won worth of corporate bonds for the first time in June.

Chong Kun Dang said the issuance of public bonds is aimed to strengthen R&D concerning anti-cancer dual antibody bio-drugs and clinical trials for Covid-19 treatment. Earlier, the company announced that it would spend 25 billion conducting a phase 3 clinical trial of Nafabeltan (ingredient: nafamostat), its Covid-19 treatment candidate.

The company also plans to make a large-scale investment of 43.2 billion won in three years in conducting the phases 1 and 2 clinical trials of its new biopharmaceutical candidate, CKD-702, an anti-cancer dual antibody bio-drug,

GC has raised 200 billion won this year through issuing public bonds, the largest amount since its inception. Daewoong, Suheung, and Kwangdong also issued 90 billion won, 43 billion won, and 22 billion won worth of public bonds, respectively.

Among bio companies, Samsung Biologics issued its first public bonds in August.

In a demand forecast to issue 300 billion won of public bonds, institutional investors showed interests way above the company's expectation by making purchase orders worth more than 1.57 trillion won.

Due to the high interest, the company increased its public bond issuance amount by 200 billion won to 500 billion won.

"We will spend all funds raised through the public issues on building our fourth plant," the company said. "The company has emerged as the world's top contract manufacturing organization (CMO) based on its previous three plants, and plans to maintain the leading position by finishing the fourth plant by 2023."

A local analyst expected that more companies would look for ways to raise funds, for example, by issuing public bonds, encouraged by the huge success of companies that have already issued public bonds.

"The local biopharmaceutical has long been an area with insufficient capital inflows due to the perception that the new drug development takes a long time and the risk of clinical failure is high," said Lee Jun-soo, an analyst for Prophet Asset Management. "However, as the local biopharmaceutical industry played a vital role in overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic and some demonstrated they can generate income by licensing out products, such perceptions have changed."

That has made the biopharmaceutical industry an attractive investment option, Lee added.