- Both companies agree 50:50 joint venture on May 30th
- Starting in July, a joint venture invests 10 billion KRW annually to new drug development
- OCI purchases 1.15 million shares (3.09%) of Bukwang stock on 30th
- Expecting new synergies by combining the strengths in pharmaceutical and chemical industry
Bukwang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.,(003000) a leader of open innovation in pharmaceutical and biotechnology fields, and OCI(010060), a chemical and energy expert company are seeking new growth opportunities in industry through today’s strategic alliance.
Today each Bukwang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd (President Hee-Won Yoo) and OCI (President, Woo Hyun Lee) held a board meeting to grant establishing a joint venture, which both companies participated at 50:50, in pharmaceutical and bio industry.
This project is planning to jointly establish a joint venture within July of 2018, and invest more than 10 billion KRW annually to explore new opportunities in followings; searching for new candidates, drug development process, and possible investment to promising venture companies.
This business alliance is expected to become a cornerstone for Bukwang pharmaceutical to become a global company by expanding its new drug development Think Tank and securing future high-value pipelines.
In addition, it is meaningful that OCI step the first-step to the Pharmaceutical and Bio industry through a collaboration with a company like Bukwang where had extensive experiences in whole process of drug development.
OCI, the world’s second largest producer of polysilicon, is successfully develop polysilicon in Korea 2008, and has experience and technology to produce ultra-high purity products with grade of more than 11N. Additionally, company has been accumulating experiences in chemical field by pesticide business (since 1976) and reagent business (since 1972)
President Woo-Hyun Lee said “It is meaningful that OCI enters the Pharmaceutical and Bio industry, which is highly considered as future high-value with Bukwang.” “We look forward to have strong synergies once OCI’s strength in chemical combines Bukwang’s experience and capability in open innovation.”
Bukwang Pharmaceutical, who has developed anti-hepatitis B drug, Levovir in 4th globally, and has stem cell specialized company Anterogen as affiliated company, is currently developing global phase 2 study in novel anti-diabetic drug ‘MLR-1023’ and new levodopa-induced dyskinesia treatment ‘JM-010’. Company is also pursuing cost-effective strategies such as finding new and promising foreign venture companies, co-development, and licensing etc.
“We are delight to establish for new drug development with OCI, a leading global company in solar and chemical industry,” President of Bukwang said. “with OCI’s global competitiveness in manufacturing at chemical and our strength in bio, we will be able to further strengthen our new drug development through business diversification”
On 30th, OCI signed a contract to purchase 1,510,786 shares of Bukwang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (3.09% of issued stock) through off-hours trading in order to consolidate this alliance.