GC LabCell and GC Cell Merge

GC LabCell and GC Cell announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement to combine in an all-stock transaction. The transaction brings together two iconic South Korean biopharmaceutical companies, highly complementary portfolios with a broad cell therapy R&D pipeline and cutting-edge manufacturing capabilities to accelerate growth and boost value creation. Under the terms of the merger agreement, each share of GC Cell stock will be exchanged for 0.4 shares of GC LabCell stock. The Boards of Directors for both companies have approved the combination. This deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

GC LabCell has pioneered proprietary NK cell platform technology to develop off-the-shelf cell-based cancer immunotherapy. GC Cell is well known for producing local oncology therapeutic, ImmuneCell-LC, a patient-derived autologous T-cell immunotherapy that was approved more than ten years ago in South Korea.

The combination creates a company with over 20 cell therapy assets including cutting-edge CAR-NK and CAR-T based pipelines. The merged company is well-positioned to collaborate with US-based partners, Artiva, Biotherapeutics, Novacel and others. Pharma giants have already started to take notice of Artiva-GC LabCell collaborative assets, early this year the Artiva team crafted a $2 billion global licensing deal.