AriBio Holdings Hits Lower Limit After Scrapping Merger With AriBio [K-bio bulse]
by김승권 기자
2026.10.01 06:42:01
This article was released as on September 30, 2026, at 6:40 AM.
[Seungkwon kim, Edaily Reporter] Korean pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare stocks showed sharply mixed moves on Sept. 29 as company-specific news drove trading. AriBio Holdings plunged to its daily lower limit in after-hours trading after announcing it had called off its planned merger with AriBio, which it had pursued for more than two years. LaMediTech, by contrast, hit its upper limit on expectations for its ECM skin booster launch.
HLB Pharmaceutical rose more than 20% for a second day after HLB won FDA approval for its bile duct cancer drug Lyrfigtu, and medical AI firm VUNO also gained over 20% for a second session on its China expansion.
AriBio Holdings Hits Lower Limit After Scrapping Merger With AriBioAriBio Holdings, formerly Soluxe, closed regular trading down 1.75% at 3,920 won. After the market closed, however, it disclosed the merger termination, and the stock fell to its lower limit on the Nextrade (NXT) after-market as sell orders flooded in.
The two companies each held board meetings on Tuesday and signed agreements to terminate the merger contract. All remaining merger steps, including the extraordinary shareholders' meeting scheduled for January, the appraisal rights process and the merger date, were canceled. Since signing the merger contract in August 2024, the companies had repeatedly pushed back the schedule. Just a week earlier, on Sept. 22, they filed an amendment moving the merger date from Dec. 4 this year to Feb. 11 next year.
The direct reason for the withdrawal was the burden of appraisal rights. According to the withdrawal filing, AriBio Holdings' reference share price was far below the appraisal price calculated under relevant laws. Under the latest amended merger contract, the appraisal price for AriBio Holdings shareholders was set at 10,719 won per share, about 2.7 times the current share price. That meant shareholders stood to gain more by opposing the merger and demanding that the company buy back their shares than by selling on the market. Repeated demands from the Financial Supervisory Service to revise the securities registration statement for the new merger shares also weighed on the deal.
A change in AriBio's valuation was another factor. In May, AriBio signed an exclusive global development and commercialization deal worth up to $4.7 billion with China's Fosun Pharma for AR1001, its oral Alzheimer's drug candidate. AriBio said the additional exclusive licensing deal had shifted the reference share valuation. It expected a large volume of appraisal claims if the shareholders' meeting went ahead, and halted the merger to avoid that risk.
AriBio Holdings' share price had long hinged on merger expectations. The company carried out a large bonus issue in December 2023, allotting 14 new shares for each existing share. However, investor concern grew as the merger was delayed by repeated regulatory revision demands. Last December, the company was given advance notice of designation as an unfaithful disclosure firm over reversed disclosures, and in June it changed its name from Soluxe to AriBio Holdings. With the new merger shares equal to about 103% of AriBio Holdings' existing outstanding shares, dilution concerns for existing shareholders were also significant.
The failed merger does not mean an end to drug development. The global Phase 3 trial of AR1001 and the Fosun Pharma deal will proceed separately. Market attention is now expected to turn to how AriBio will pursue an IPO and financing, such as a standalone listing instead of a backdoor listing. At the time of the Fosun deal, AriBio said it was also considering a standalone KOSPI listing separate from the merger.
LaMediTech hits upper limit ahead of 'IO-FILL' launchLaMediTech closed up 29.98% at 4,035 won, its daily limit, according to KG Zeroin. The stock has risen more than 50% in about two weeks from the 2,500-won range in mid-September.
The company listed on KOSDAQ in June 2024 at an IPO price of 16,000 won and touched 56,000 won intraday on its debut, but slid as earnings fell short of its listing-time guidance. Its 52-week range is 2,290–9,300 won. In March, approval of its laser lancing and glucose monitoring device HandyRay-Glu sent the stock to its daily limit (5,920 won), but the gains did not hold.
The latest rally appears to reflect expectations for its new ECM skin booster business. LaMediTech plans to begin supplying the skin booster brand IO-FILL to Korean clinics next month. It signed a domestic distribution deal with allogeneic ECM maker Eretec Korea last December and obtained a human tissue bank license from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in May.
The company says IO-FILL uses a patented natural surfactant in the decellularization process instead of the synthetic surfactants common in rival products, lowering the risk of inflammation and fibrosis from chemical residue.
LaMediTech is pursuing a "turnkey" strategy pairing device and material. Its clinic-use laser FX-7000M, submitted for approval in July, creates micro-channels in the skin to improve dermal delivery of ECM and other active ingredients.
"We will pursue a domestic launch in the second half as soon as approval is complete," a company official said, adding that the company would expand its portfolio around laser devices and ECM-based aesthetic solutions.
According to brokerage estimates, Korea's ECM skin booster market is expected to grow from 9.9 billion won last year to 92.5 billion won this year and 172.9 billion won next year. However, with L&C Bio's Re2O and Hans Biomed's CellREDM followed by GC Wellbeing, Vaim Global and HLB Life Science, some warn of toxin-style price competition. For latecomer LaMediTech, the key is whether device integration translates into prescriptions.
HLB Pharmaceutical extends gains on Lyrfigtu approvalHLB Pharmaceutical rose 25.05% to 12,030 won, adding to the previous session's limit-up close of 9,620 won for a two-day gain of about 63%. Volume exceeded 7 million shares, more than 200 times the prior session's 32,890.
The catalyst was HLB's new drug approval. HLB's U.S. subsidiary Elevar Therapeutics received FDA approval on Sept. 23 (local time) for Lyrfigtu (lirafugratinib) as a second-line treatment for bile duct cancer with FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements — the first time a Korean company has directly filed and won approval for a global cancer drug NDA. On Sept. 28, the first trading day after the Chuseok holiday, 10 HLB group affiliates closed at their daily limits.
In the pivotal ReFocus Phase 1/2 trial, Lyrfigtu showed an objective response rate of 45.7% and median duration of response of 11.8 months. Elevar targets a U.S. launch in the fourth quarter and filed with the European Medicines Agency this month. Attention is now shifting to the liver cancer drug resubmission. HLB Group Chairman Jin Yang-gon said Hengrui's CMC deficiencies "have already been resolved" and that HLB will refile once updated safety data is compiled.
HLB Pharmaceutical's 52-week high was 24,250 won, but the stock fell as low as 6,000 won after the liver cancer drug received a third complete response letter in July. It began rebounding this month on expectations for its long-acting injectable dementia treatment and is up about 94% from its Sept. 18 close of 6,210 won.
Core earnings are improving. First-half consolidated revenue rose 56.8% to a record 127.9 billion won, with double-digit growth in prescription drugs such as Rosuduo and Tinza, lifting its outpatient prescription ranking from 48th to 42nd. Operating profit, however, was only about 1 billion won.
Its long-term growth driver is the in-house long-acting injectable platform SMEB, but many candidates remain preclinical. With a P/E above 100, valuation deserves scrutiny apart from group momentum.
A company official said subsidiary earnings and growth in the core business "came together," adding that it would continue to improve profitability through in-house production at its new Hyangnam plant.
VUNO rallies for second day on China dealVUNO rose 21.99% to 8,320 won, following a 22.44% gain the previous session.
The driver was its China entry. VUNO said Sept. 28 it signed a two-year exclusive deal with Chinese medical firm Guorun to sell its AI cardiac arrest prediction device VUNO Med-DeepCARS in Hainan. The two will run proofs of concept at hospitals in the Boao Lecheng medical tourism pilot zone, where overseas-approved drugs and devices can be used before mainland approval. In Jiangsu, VUNO is pursuing a deal with BioVision for its Fundus AI.
The past year has been rough. VUNO's 52-week high was 30,350 won, but the stock fell as low as 4,235 won as DeepCARS' FDA clearance was delayed by a request for multi-ethnic data, followed by a rights offering and restructuring. It remains more than 70% below its peak.
Revenue rose 35% to 34.8 billion won last year, but first-half revenue fell 27.6% to 12.2 billion won and the operating loss widened to 8.3 billion won as the new health technology assessment for DeepCARS limited new hospital adoption. With DeepCARS accounting for 86% of revenue, the assessment result expected in the fourth quarter will be a key inflection point.
Kiwoom Securities analyst Heo Hye-min said "the bottom of the sector's price correction is being confirmed," but noted that ending the time correction requires fundamental improvement such as earnings beating expectations, quality licensing deals and clinical data proving global competitiveness.