After receiving preliminary listing approval from the Korea Exchange, Curocell has maintained that it will proceed with an initial public offering (IPO) this year.

The Korea Exchange's Kosdaq market headquarters approved the preliminary listing review of Curocell on Thursday. That comes about four months after the company filed for preliminary listing with the exchange in May. The number of shares to be listed is 13,564,736, of which 1.6 million will be offered to the public.

Curocell met the criteria for the special listing by obtaining “A” and “BBB” ratings from the Korea Technology Assessment Data and the Technology Guarantee Fund designated by the Korea Exchange earlier this year.

With the passing of the preliminary examination, Curocell will prepare the necessary documents to submit the securities report and begin the initial public offering (IPO) process in earnest. The listing’s co-managers are Samsung Securities and Mirae Asset Securities.

"Our original plan to go public within the year remains the same," said an official from Curocell. “And if there are no changes, we expect to be listed on Kosdaq in November."

Founded in 2016, Curocell is developing CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) therapeutics. It became the first company in Korea to enter clinical trials for a CAR-T therapy candidate.

Curocell is conducting phase 2 clinical trials of CRC01 (anbalcabtazine autolucel, or anbal-cel), a CD19-targeted CAR-T therapy. It is conducted on patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. It plans to complete the phase 2 study this year and apply for marketing authorization to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in the second half of next year.

Curocell expects to administer CRC01 to Korean patients as early as 2025 following the approval of the new drug. In addition, SK Plasma, a strategic investor (SI) of Curocell, will jointly promote the domestic and overseas business of CAR-T therapies developed by Curocell.

"The passing of the preliminary listing review is a result of recognizing the competitiveness of Curocell, which has its own unique CAR-T technology and the largest and most advanced GMP facility in Korea," Curocell CEO Kim Gun-soo said. "We will do our best to grow into a global company after listing on the Kosdaq based on our ability to lead the domestic CAR-T treatment market since our founding."