A South Korean biotechnology company that is developing a vaccine to fight new strains of Covid-19 jumped on its first day of trading, after concluding Seoul’s biggest initial public offering in nearly four years.
By midmorning Thursday in Seoul, SK Bioscience Co.’s stock stood at 169,000 won a share, up 160% from its initial public offering price. Investor orders for the IPO topped $56 billion, greatly exceeding the $1.3 billion of shares on offer.
SK Bioscience is performing clinical trials for a vaccine against new coronavirus strains such as the B.1.351 variant, which was first identified in South Africa and which has also been detected in the U.S. Emerging data suggests that this variant could be better at evading antibodies.
If trials are successful, SK Bioscience’s Covid-19 vaccine will contribute to a global aim of manufacturing 1 billion doses of second-generation vaccines by the end of next year, according to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a global group that is working to accelerate the development of vaccines.
The new vaccine has been funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and CEPI. SK Bioscience also has agreements with
PLC and
Novavax Inc.
to manufacture and distribute their Covid-19 vaccines in South Korea.
The IPO is the largest in South Korea since 2017, according to Dealogic, when the country’s top mobile-gaming company,
Netmarble Corp.
, raised more than $2 billion. In a more recent hit IPO in October, shares in
, the management company behind K-Pop boy band BTS, leapt more than 90% on their first day of trading.
The country has also generated some large international deals. Last week, local e-commerce giant
went public on the New York Stock Exchange, in the biggest foreign IPO in the United States since 2014.
South Korean stocks have rallied in the past year, and trading volumes have surged, as individual investors have rushed into the stock market. Biotech shares were one of the hottest segments of the market until late last year, but the fervor has cooled recently.
For example,
Celltrion Inc.
shares have dropped 18% this year through Wednesday, underperforming the benchmark Kospi Composite’s 6.1% rise, according to FactSet. They remain sharply higher compared with a year earlier.
SK Bioscience is backed by SK Group, the local conglomerate that is also behind semiconductor-manufacturing group
SK Hynix Inc.
Write to Frances Yoon at frances.yoon@wsj.com
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