GenNBio said that Genexine has become its largest shareholder.

The announcement came after Genexine turned its convertible bonds (CB) into the equities of GenNBio on Monday.

With the conversion request, Genexine now holds 8.13 percent of GenNBio's shares and can have up to 11.83 percent of the company's total shares considering the unconverted CBs that Genexine owns.

"Genexine is a new drug development company that takes the lead in the area of immunotherapeutic and antibody fusion proteins," GenNBio said. "The company has played a great role in helping GenNBio enter the bioindustry and lay the foundation for our long-term development projects."

Beginning with the conversion of GenNBio into a bio-company helped by the cooperation of Kyungdong Pharmaceutical in 2018, Genexine also played a vital role in appointing Professor Kim Sung-joo of Samsung Medical Center as the new CEO of GenNBio.

Genexine also licensed out GX-P1 and BSF-110, a dual-fusion immunosuppressant that combines programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-LI) and modified Interleukin 10 (IL-10), to GenNBio last Tuesday.

"As the global immunosuppressant market is likely to grow to about 7 trillion won ($6 billion) by 2026, GenNBio is expected to contribute to addressing the unmet needs in organ transplants by licensing out its core technology," the company said. "Genexine also plans to organize further GenNBio's xenotransplantation platform as the latter’s largest shareholder."

GenNBio has officially joined Genexine's network, which supports local bioventures in various ways and is developing a new drug development ecosystem, the company added.

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