Coreline Soft said it has submitted a filing with Shinhan 7th Special Purpose Acquisition Company to the Financial Services Commission and plans to start trading on the tech-heavy Kosdaq market in September. 

The merger will be an absorption merger, in which Coreline will absorb  Shinhan 7th Special Purpose Acquisition Company and list on the Kosdaq market as the surviving entity. The merger ratio has been set at 1:0.1878679, with each Coreline share being exchanged for 0.1878679 shares of Shinhan 7th Special Purpose Acquisition Company.

The AI medical imaging firm plans to hold a shareholders' meeting to approve the merger on Aug. 1, and a share purchase right exercise period from Aug. 1-21. 

The planned merger date is Sept. 5, and the company plans to start trading on the Kosdaq market in September.

Coreline specializes in computer tomography (CT) image analysis and has global top-tier products and technologies. It differentiates itself from other AI medical image analysis solution companies by offering solutions based on 3D-medical imaging rather than 2D.

Notably, the company has developed and secured screening solutions such as AVIEW LCS, AVIEW CAC, and AVIEW COPD for all three smoking-related diseases, including lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cardiovascular disease.

Currently, the company is focusing its R&D efforts on expanding its portfolio to include interstitial lung abnormalities, aortic aneurysm analysis, bone density assessment, fatty liver, and pulmonary embolism to simultaneously screen for abnormalities that can be detected in low-dose chest CT.

The company's business performance is also improving, with its annual sales nearly doubling in 2022 compared to the previous year. 

According to the company’s public filing of the preliminary 2022 earnings, Coreline Soft’s revenue reached 4 billion won ($3 million) last year, an 89.3 percent jump from 2021.

However, the company’s operating loss widened by 37.9 percent from about 7.3 billion won to 10.1 billion during the same period. Net loss was also up 37 percent at 10.2 billion won.

The company attributed the rapid sales growth to the competitiveness of its flagship products. 

Meanwhile, investors are keeping a close eye on the listing of Coreline on the Kosdaq market as Korean AI medical imaging companies have recently shown a strong presence in the market. 

Notably, three companies – Lunit, Vuno, and JLK – that started trading on the Kosdaq market before Coreline are doing exceptionally well this year thanks to the renewed interest in the AI industry. 

All three companies' stock prices have surged by two or three-fold compared to the beginning of the year. 

"As Coreline has already been active in the field of medical imaging for some time, they may be able to enjoy the heightened interest for medical AI imaging companies currently in the stock market," an industry official told Korea Biomedical Review.