Keeps Biopharma has changed its business category from “special purpose machinery manufacturing” to “pharmaceutical manufacturing.”

The change reflects a shift in its core business. In the first half of this year, pharmaceutical manufacturing accounted for more than 90 percent of Keeps Biopharma's total sales revenue. The Korea Exchange recently finalized the category change after reviewing materials submitted by the company last month.

Last October, Keeps Biopharma acquired Korea Global Pharm. In April, it transitioned from a manufacturer of OLED display process equipment to a pharmaceutical and biotech company through a merger and name change.

Keeps Biopharma has been conducting biopharmaceutical business, including the development of new anticancer drugs, through its subsidiaries Bixink Therapeutics and Algok Bio. In February, it acquired Keeps Biomed, a developer of an oral peptide drug delivery platform, and is now also developing an oral weight-reducing drug containing the highly competitive GLP-1 component.

For its oral insulin candidate using Keeps Biomed’s Oraloid oral platform technology, the company reported a relative bioavailability of 37.7 percent in beagle dogs and an absolute bioavailability of 6.7 percent in monkeys, confirming an absorption rate significantly higher than that of competitors.

“We are developing our oral platform technology with a focus on its expandability to various peptide drugs, segmenting the development timeline accordingly,” Keeps Biopharma CEO Kim Ha-young said. “Our oral insulin, which has already demonstrated world-class absorption rates, is currently undergoing specific preparatory work for clinical entry.”

Regarding the development of an oral obesity treatment, which has drawn significant market attention, Kim said, “For GLP-1, we are optimizing the oral platform to achieve insulin-level absorption rates. We are also making additional investments, including expanding our research team, to optimize each compound and advance our technology.”