LigaChem Bio Secures ₩500B from Korea's National Growth Fund in Landmark ADC Biotech Deal

The Quick Take

• LigaChem Bio has been selected as the first biotech direct-investment target of Korea's national growth fund, raising ₩500B.
• The fund commits ₩250B from the government's advanced strategic industry pool, with matching ₩250B from domestic institutions.
• STICK Alternative Asset Management plans a separate ₩500B blind fund targeting energy and infrastructure in the same period.

LigaChem BioSciences has been selected as the inaugural biotech direct-investment target of Korea's National Growth Fund, a government vehicle designed to channel capital into large-scale, high-risk strategic industries that the private market cannot efficiently finance alone. The ₩500B fundraise is structured as ₩250B from the Advanced Strategic Industry Fund — a government pool — matched by ₩250B from LigaChem's major shareholders and domestic institutional investors. The capital is deployed through a ten-year structure combining convertible bonds (₩170B) and convertible preferred shares (₩330B), with no immediate dilution to listed common stock at issuance.

The selection of LigaChem — a developer of antibody-drug conjugate platform technologies with established partnership track records — as the first biotech fund recipient signals Korea's strategic prioritization of ADC drug development as a national industrial pillar. A parallel development in the same reporting period is STICK Alternative Asset Management, a subsidiary of STICK Investment, announcing its largest-ever blind fund targeting ₩500B with a focus on energy and infrastructure assets including SK Multi-Utility and Ulsan GPS equity stakes. Taken together, both capital raises reflect sustained institutional appetite for Korean strategic-sector investments across biotech and energy.

The key milestone to watch is whether LigaChem Bio converts its ADC pipeline into advanced clinical-stage assets that can attract international pharma partnership deals — the primary value-creation event for ADC developers globally. For STICK Alternative, the fund's ability to attract capital from institutional LPs beyond the domestic market will determine its strategic scope. The macro variable is the Korean government's willingness to expand the National Growth Fund into additional biotech and defense companies, as the current pipeline suggests at least two more direct investment decisions are pending in the near term.

Synthesized from 3 sources.