There is a great deal of interest in the synergies that will be realized after the merger of Hanmi and OCI Group, which pioneered a new model of business-to-business cooperation in the Korean economy.
In particular, the pharmaceutical bio and healthcare sectors, one of the pillars of the integration model, are said to have laid the groundwork for explosive growth, while Hanmi Science, the holding company of the Hanmi Group, is said to have gained breathing room for its urgent funding needs and laid a solid foundation for creating stable future growth engines.
Hanmi Science merged with Hanmi Healthcare, a group affiliate, last year, transforming it into a "business-type holding company" with its own growth engines in the fields of health functional foods, medical devices, food, and IT solutions.
Analysts believe that the merger with OCI will provide the foundation for Hanmi Science to pay off its debt early, thus contributing to the enhancement of Hanmi Science's corporate value and realization of shareholder value by reducing its borrowing burden. In fact, Hanmi Science's stock price has been showing positive share price trends, reaching a new 52-week high since the announcement of the integration with OCI Group.
The integration with OCI is expected to generate additional financial resources to fund aggressive operations to expand the global healthcare market. In particular, Hanmi Group expects to create synergies through cooperation with OCI Group's affiliate, Bukwang Pharmaceutical.
In fact, Bukwang Pharmaceutical is an R&D-oriented company that invests 10 to 20 percent of its sales in R&D, and it is analyzed that R&D synergies could be even greater if it collaborates with Hanmi Group, whose corporate philosophy is to develop innovative new drugs.
It is particularly noteworthy that Hanmi's R&D is focused on metabolism/obesity, immunity/targeted antitumor, and rare diseases, while Buguang Pharmaceutical is actively developing new drugs for neurological diseases such as depression and Parkinson's disease. The two companies' drug pipelines do not overlap, and it is analyzed that it will be possible to develop new drugs more quickly through cooperation without artificial reorganization of the R&D organization such as restructuring.
Above all, it is significant that Hanmi Group will have the stamina to conduct global clinical trials costing hundreds of billions of won on its own.
"When negotiating with a counterparty over the size of a contract, the fact that the original developer has the stamina to develop and commercialize the drug on its own gives it the upper hand in negotiations," said an official from Hanmi Group. "The integration with OCI Group will not only speed up Hanmi's drug development, but it will also be a very powerful synergy in future license agreement negotiations."
