Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
Genome and Company aims to sell cancer drug candidates
Hong Yoo-seok, CEO of Genome and Company, speaks during a press conference at the Conrad Seoul hotel, Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of Genome and Company
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Genome and Company is aiming to sell its drug candidates for targeted anti-cancer drugs to an overseas biopharmaceutical company within the year in a bid to become a company that develops both anti-cancer drugs and microbiome drugs, the CEO of the local biotech company said, Monday.
“We will focus on ADC (antibody-drug conjugate) drugs in the near future in new targeted anti-cancer drugs with early technology transfer, supported by funding from our microbiome CDMO business,” Hong Yoo-seok, CEO of Genome and Company, said during a press conference, in Seoul.
Genome and Company is known as a microbiome drug maker. A microbiome refers to the community of microbes such as bacteria that live in the human body. With the progress in DNA sequencing technologies, it is confirmed that microbiomes have a great significance in determining whether or not people will develop various diseases.
Genome and Company an industry leader with its microbiome immuno-oncology drug candidates such as GEN-001, and has also been developing other candidates for antibody cancer drugs.
“For a small biotech like ours, it is important that each pipeline starts with a specific goal,” the CEO said. “Our goal is to establish what our commercialization goals are for our assets and how we plan to achieve them so that we can generate revenue quickly.”
The company said its pipeline for technology export this year includes two novel targeted anti-cancer drug candidates: GENA-104 and GENA-111.
The company completed nonclinical toxicity studies on the candidate and expects to submit a Phase 1 clinical trial protocol to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety this month.
GENE-111 is a novel candidate that targets ADC, which targets CD239 and is being developed in collaboration with the Switzerland-based company Debiopharm, Genome and Company said.
Regarding the GEN-001 candidate, which is on Phase 2 clinical tests, Pae Ji-soo, founder and CEO of Genome and Company, said “We plan to present the GEN-001 clinical data during a symposium held by the American Society of Clonal Oncology's Gastroenterology Symposium next January.”