Peptron(087010) said on the 14th that Chief Executive Choi Ho-il acquired 10,000 shares of treasury stock through on-exchange purchases. With volatility rising amid market misunderstandings surrounding joint research with Eli Lilly and Company in the United States, it is seen as the management directly moving to expand equity to emphasize the company's technological strength and growth potential.
According to the company, with this purchase Choi now holds a total of 1,676,662 shares, and the equity stake rose to 7.19%, up 0.04 percentage points from before.
A Peptron official said, "As a listed company, we feel a heavy sense of responsibility for responsible management and enhancing shareholder value," and added, "This stock purchase is intended to enhance corporate value and also shows the management's confidence in Peptron's technological strength and growth potential."
Peptron is pursuing new drug development based on its in-house long-acting drug delivery platform "SmartDepot."
It successfully commercialized "Luproan," a 1-month long-acting treatment for prostate cancer and precocious puberty that applies SmartDepot technology, and won item approval from the Ministery of Food and Drug Safety last year. To enter the Latin American market, the company also applied for item approval in Mexico early this year.
It is also accelerating development of long-acting obesity treatments. Peptron is developing "PT403," which applies SmartDepot technology to the glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 class obesity drug candidate "semaglutide." PT403 is a 1-month long-acting diabetes and obesity drug candidate that improves the existing once-weekly dosing regimen to once monthly, and the company is aiming to enter clinical trials within the year.
Peptron recently announced study results confirming sustained weight-loss effects and excellent safety and gastrointestinal tolerability for PT403. It is also formulating a global development strategy with the 505(b)(2) pathway in mind—an improved new drug approval route that leverages existing approved drug data—through prior consultations with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The 505(b)(2) pathway allows use of existing safety and efficacy data for prior drugs, reducing development time and expense.
It is also investing to expand production capacity. Peptron is pushing to build a second plant in Osong, North Chungcheong Province, with construction set to begin in Sep., to establish a long-acting pharmaceutical production facility that meets current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) standards in the United States. Through this, it plans to secure production capacity for its global pipeline based on the SmartDepot platform.
Peptron has continued joint research since signing a technology evaluation contract with Eli Lilly and Company in Oct. last year. Lilly is verifying the feasibility of developing a once-monthly formulation by applying Peptron's SmartDepot technology to its own peptide-based candidates.
The joint research, initially set to end late last year, was extended to Oct. 7. The industry sees the extended research period as expanding the scope of the technology evaluation to include candidates for central nervous system (CNS) disorders.
Earlier, on the 9th at a forum held in Daejeon, Chief Executive Choi said, "The joint research to apply Lilly's GLP-1 substance to SmartDepot is progressing with an expanded scope from obesity and diabetes to CNS disorders."
However, after the announcement, some in the market interpreted that previously commercialized GLP-1 class substances were excluded from the joint research targets with Lilly, and the stock price plunged.
On this, Peptron explained that the initial technology evaluation began with verifying the feasibility of a long-acting formulation using GLP-1 class obesity treatments commercialized in the global market, and that this research has already been conducted. It said that based on the data results, it then expanded the scope of the joint research to next-generation candidates aimed at improving side effects.