South Korea's SK Bioscience to buy control of Germany's IDT Biologika for $244 million

SEOUL (Reuters) - SK Bioscience will acquire a 60% stake in German pharmaceutical contract manufacturing firm IDT Biologika GmbH from Klocke Gruppe in a deal worth 339 billion won ($243.75 million), the South Korean vaccine maker said on Thursday.

Klocke, a pharmaceutical group, will retain a 40% stake in the firm.

This is SK Bioscience's first major M&A deal since its 2021 IPO raised $1.33 billion. SK Bioscience shares were trading up 11.7% in morning trade after the announcement.

Its parent SK Group, best known for its chip firm SK Hynix, has been considering ways to streamline its business to focus on key areas including artificial intelligence, chips and batteries.

The group is working on rebalancing each business area, SK Bioscience CEO Jaeyong Ahn told reporters on Thursday, adding that the deal was aligned with the company's "big flow of overall optimisation."

The group will hold a two-day strategy meeting from Friday to discuss rebalancing businesses among its affiliates.

($1 = 1,390.7600 won)

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Kim Coghill and Janane Venkatraman)