[Yonhap News] 사진 확대 [Yonhap News]

Hana Securities raised its target price from 610,000 won to 660,000 won on the 25th, saying it is positive that it has signed a contract to hand over HM17321, a candidate for obesity treatment, to Genentech, a 100% subsidiary of Roche. The investment opinion maintained a buyout.

Hanmi Pharmaceutical transferred HM17321 to Genentech on the 24th. Technology transfer refers to handing over new drug candidates being developed by pharmaceutical companies to other pharmaceutical companies and receiving down payments and money based on future development results.

The contract is worth a total of $2.35 billion, including a down payment of $190 million plus milestones of up to $2.115 billion. Milestones are money received whenever new drug development reaches a certain stage, such as passing clinical trials. Apart from royalties, down payments account for 8.2% of the total contract size.

According to Hana Securities, the average prepayment ratio of global technology transfer contracts from 2022 is around 6-7%.

Kim Sun-ah, a researcher at Hana Securities, said, “Considering that HM17321 is still in the first phase of clinical trials, it is a very friendly contract for Hanmi Pharmaceutical.”

HM17321 is a new drug candidate substance that can be expected not only to lose weight due to obesity but also to protect muscles. It is administered by injection once a week.

Another reason why this contract is attracting attention is that HM17321 may be used to treat diseases other than obesity. Based on data released by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in June this year, Hana Securities explained that HM17321 showed the effect of increasing muscle strength in diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and sarcopenia models caused by faster aging.

Hana Securities believes that the value of HM17321 will not remain only in obesity treatment. In particular, it is highly likely to be used to treat “disease” used with other obesity treatments, and the background of the contract is that it can expand the scope of treatment beyond obesity and diabetes to sarcopenia.

Accordingly, Hana Securities raised the value of HM17321 from 402.2 billion won to 1.158 trillion won and calculated Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s corporate value at 8.3725 trillion won. The target stock price is 660,000 won, and considering that the current stock price is 540,000 won, the upside capacity is 22.2%.

Other candidates for Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s obesity treatment are also being developed. The triple agent HM15275 is undergoing phase 2 clinical trials in the United States.

Researcher Kim predicted, “Hanmi Pharmaceutical is expected to develop up to the first phase and Genentech will take charge of the second phase,” adding, “If the scope of development expands by combining various diseases and other treatments in the second phase of 2027, a large-scale milestone will come in.”