Traditional pharmaceutical companies are speeding up’open innovation’ in cooperation with various bio-healthcare startups to diversify their business and develop new drugs. Open innovation refers to a method in which pharmaceutical companies share or collaborate with external organizations and companies without relying on their own capabilities in the process of research and development (R&D) for new drugs.
On the 23rd, major pharmaceutical companies such as Yuhan Corporation, Handok, Daewoong Pharmaceutical, etc., have announced that they have invested shares in bio-startups or signed contracts for joint research. First, Yuhan announced that it has invested an additional 10 billion won in April Bio, which has the technology to develop new antibody drugs, to become the second largest shareholder (13.8% stake). Yuhan Corporation previously invested 3 billion won in April Bio last year. April Bio is a company that develops new antibody drugs for various diseases.
Yuhan Corporation is being evaluated as the most aggressive use of open innovation in the domestic pharmaceutical industry by developing Rekraza, a second-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, through collaboration with a bio-venture, and obtaining approval as a new drug No. An official from Yuhan said, “April Bio recognized the excellence of technology and decided to invest for the purpose of accelerating joint research between the two companies.”
On the 22nd, Handok made a stake investment of 3 billion won in digital treatment development company Welt and signed a strategic partnership to jointly develop alcoholism and insomnia digital treatment. Digital therapy is a therapy that treats diseases through software such as games and images, not drugs. Welt is a startup that was spin-off from Samsung Electronics in 2016 and is introducing the first digital treatment in Korea. Handok is actively using open innovation by collaborating with Genexine, SCM Life Science, and ABL Bio.
Daewoong Pharmaceutical also signed a joint R&D agreement with Oncocross, an artificial intelligence (AI) drug development company. Oncocross has a platform technology that uses AI to find new drug candidates and new therapeutic ranges for existing drugs. Daewoong Pharmaceutical plans to verify the possibility of expanding drug indications by applying the Oncocross AI platform technology to the new drug being developed.
The increasing number of cases of collaboration between traditional pharmaceutical companies and start-ups is because there is a lot of room for’win-win’, such as reducing the cost and risk for new drug development from the point of view of pharmaceutical companies, and being able to utilize the know-how of product commercialization of pharmaceutical companies from the point of view of start-ups.
[정지성 기자]
[ⓒ 매일경제 & mk.co.kr, 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]