Two microbiome companies, Kobiolabs and Genome & Company, said they planned to debut on the Kosdaq market in the second half of this year.

Microbiome refers to the complete genetic information of microorganisms within the human body. Researchers have discovered that microorganisms in the human body are related to various life mechanisms and diseases, and pharmaceutical firms are actively developing related drugs.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corp., picked microbiome as one of the three healthcare technologies to change the world, along with dementia treatment and immunotherapy, at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in 2018.

Kobiolabs said it had set a date for initial public offering. The company plans to offer public offerings for general subscribers from on Oct. 26 and 27 and institutional investors, on Oct. 20 and 21. The company said it would issue 2.4 million shares for subscription at the offer price of 18,000 won ($15.38), which would raise 43.2 billion won in total.

Established in 2014, Kobiolabs develops various medicines using fecal transplants, live bacteria, and substances derived from microorganisms.

The company has attracted a total of 52.1 billion won fund since its foundation. In 2019, it raised 30.6 billion won investment, including 4 billion won from CJ CheilJedang.

Kobiolabs spent 6.1 billion won in R&D in 2019. The company expects that the R&D expense will record 12 billion won in 2020, and 17.4 billion won in 2021.

Kobiolabs’ key pipeline is KBLP-001, an investigational drug for psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. The agent was the first local microbiome treatment to be tested in a global clinical trial. Kobiolabs ended the phase-1 trial on KBLP-001 in Australia in May and received the U.S. FDA’s nod for a phase-2 trial on the investigational new drug (IND) in August. During the phase-2 study, the company plans to administer KBLP-001 to patients with moderate psoriasis for 12 weeks in the U.S. and Australia.

The company is also testing KBLP-002 to treat asthma and atopic dermatitis in a phase-1 study in Australia. During the trial, the first patient received the experimental treatment in August. In Korea, Kobiolabs began two trials to check the agent’s preliminary efficacy on ulcerative colitis and asthma.

Another microbiome firm Genome & Company, is pushing to go public on Kosdaq in the second half. The company plans to use a fast-track listing policy, allowing a Konex-listed firm to move to Kosdaq quickly. In July, the company passed the technology assessment required for moving to Kosdaq.

Found in 2015, Genome & Company develops microbiome immunotherapies and new immune checkpoint inhibitors to treat cancer. In 2018, the company was listed on Konex, or Korea New Exchange for small- and medium-sized enterprises only.

Genome & Company’s key immunotherapy candidate GEN-001 won a local patent on anticancer use. The company said the pre-clinical trial results showed that GEN-001 activated dendritic, macrophage, and T cell responses.

The company is testing GEN-001 as an oral anticancer drug in combination with an immune checkpoint inhibitor. In May, the company won the local regulatory approval for the investigator-initiated trial on the microbiome treatment, which was the first in Korea.

Genome & Company took over Scioto Biosciences, a U.S. microbiome drug developer, in August and secured a brain disease treatment SB-121. The company obtained the FDA’s approval for phase-1/1b study on SB-121 in November and plans to start the trial in the first half of 2021.

Genome & Company received 3 billion won investment from Dongkoo Bio & Pharma in April and 20 billion won from Korea Development Bank (KDB) in August.

The company also plans to enter the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business.

Investors raised anticipation for the two microbiome companies, especially after ChunLab, a microbiome firm, entered the Kosdaq market. In December, ChunLab went public with the offer price of 40,000 won per share, through the technology exception policy.

However, the continued Covid-19 crisis might hurt the two companies’ IPO schedule.

Kobiolabs had initially planned to go public in the first half but delayed the plan amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Genome & Company also put off an investor relations briefing last month because of the delayed Korea Bio Investment Conference 2020 amid stricter social distancing rules. The conference is to take place in November.

“At the upcoming bio investment conference, we plan to explain our key pipeline, GEN-001,” an official at Genome & Company said. “We’ll do our best to do IPO within this year.”

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