CancerRop, a company specializing in precision medicine and molecular diagnostics, announced a jump start in the global vaccine hub for COVID-19 mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) with Hanmi Science through 20 billion won worth of investment.

On the 30th, CancerRop announced that it had decided to issue a capital increase of about 20 billion won through a third-party allocation to Lim Chong-Yoon, CEO of Hanmi Science and Chairman of Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization. Lim Chong-Yoon will invest 277,778 common shares of Hanmi Science in CancerRop, and in return, CancerRop will issue 5,614,823 common shares.

Upon completing the payment for the investment, CancerRop's largest shareholder will be changed to Lim Chong-Yoon, CEO of Hanmi Science, and the current management will be maintained even after the change of the largest shareholder for the stable business. Currently, CancerRop is led by chairman of Myongji Hospital and Co-CEO, Lee Wang-jun and Co-CEO Hwang Do-soon.

An official at CancerRop said, "This investment was made to cooperate with Oxford Vacmedix, established in 2021 as a spinout from Oxford University, which has world's first technology in cancer vaccine. With CancerRop's pioneering molecular and genomic analysis capabilities and experience in immune cell research, this collaboration will play a key role as a bridgehead for clinical trials related to mRNA vaccines in the future." Oxford Vacmedix is a company that develops therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer using Recombinant Overlapping Peptides platform and is currently developing four cancer vaccines. Currently, Oxford Vacmedix's CEO is from AstraZeneca, and CancerRop is the largest shareholder with a 43 percent stake.

Meanwhile, the Hanmi Group, which has a total manufacturing infrastructure specializing in the development and production of biopharmaceutical products at every stage of process along with mass production capability of drug substances of messenger RNA vaccines, has already established a consortium with Myongji Hospital and GeneOne Life Science, Innovio Pharmaceuticals, and GS Neotek last May to participate in the WHO (World Health Organization) project to become mRNA vaccine hub in the Asia-Pacific region. The goal is to position as a leader in mRNA technology at the forefront of the global vaccine hub strategy.

출처: The Korea Herald

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