Researchers at LG Chem’s Life Science Business Division are conducting drug experiments at Magok Research and Development (R&D) campus in Magok Jungang-ro, Seoul. Provided by LG Chem
LG Chem, one of the nation’s best-known new drug development companies, has released a blueprint for steadily introducing new drugs with good efficacy, with about 40 pipelines currently secured, including gout treatments. It is at the’JP Morgan Healthcare Conference’, the world’s largest bio-investment event held online on the 13th. Major domestic pharmaceutical and bio companies participating in the event, including HK Innoen’s announcement of a research plan for gene therapy for blood cancer and solid cancer cells, unpacked the’new drug development plan’.
LG Chem “will continue to release innovative new drugs”
LG Chem, which appeared on the’Emerging Market’ track at this year’s conference, presented a strategy to focus on developing gout treatment and hereditary obesity treatment with the goal of’Best-in-Class’. Rather than going all-in to the’first-in-class’, which has a somewhat low probability of success in developing new drugs, it means that it will focus on offering medicines that can replace existing treatments in a market with a certain size.
A gout treatment is an example. The strategy is to increase convenience and penetrate the market dominated by multinational pharmaceutical companies. LG Chem explained that it has confirmed that a gout drug developed in-house through phase 1 clinical trials in the U.S. suppresses excessive production of uric acid, the main cause of gout. The strength is that you only need to take one tablet a day, regardless of your meals. LG Chem plans to complete phase 2 clinical trials in the US in the second quarter of this year.
Another secret weapon of LG Chem is hereditary obesity treatment. It is a drug that treats obesity by activating the appetite control protein’MC4R’. Currently, phase 1 clinical trial is in progress in the United States. The project was listed on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) orphan drug list in September last year, and was granted market monopoly benefits that could block the sale of subsequent drugs for seven years.
Ji-woong Sohn, head of the life science business division of LG Chem, said, “We have significantly increased the number of new drug tasks to about 40 for four years after the merger with LG Life Sciences in 2017. We will leap forward as a global bio company that continuously releases innovative new drugs.”
K-Bio on the’Bio CES’
There are more than 30 domestic pharmaceutical and bio companies participating in this year’s JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, which is called the’Bio Industry’s CES (International Electronics Show). It nearly doubled from 18 last year. This means that K-Bio companies’ skills and influence have increased.
HK Innoen, who debuted at this year’s JP Morgan healthcare conference, revealed the development status of follow-up pipelines along with the achievements of K-cap, the 30th domestic drug. A new drug for autoimmune diseases is undergoing phase 1 clinical trials in Korea, and a new drug for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has completed phase 1 in Europe. The two substances under development as anticancer drugs were declared to be put on phase 2 clinical trials in Europe soon. Kang Seok-hee, CEO of HK Innoen, said, “We will consider various forms of collaboration, such as strategic investment, technology and product export, and joint research with global bio-pharmaceutical companies.”
Samsung Biologics, the new CEO, John Lim, introduced the strategy of the biopharmaceutical consignment production (CMO) and consignment development (CDO) business. Huzel unveiled its strategy for the Chinese market of a botulinum toxin product known as’Botox’, and Genexine unveiled its commercialization strategy for’GX-I7′, which is being developed as an anticancer drug and COVID-19 treatment. Naivec announced the results of an anticancer animal experiment using peptides, a protein fragment.
Reporter Lee Joo-hyun/Kim Woo-seop [email protected]
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