SK Chemicals said it would co-promote Kaloderm, a cell therapy for diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), with Tego Science.

The two companies signed a contract on Wednesday to increase the therapy’s share in the domestic market by jointly marketing and selling it to general hospitals, the company said in a news release.

SK Chemicals is likely to expand its business portfolio to the DFU therapy market through joint endeavors. Tego Science also expects synergic effects in the DFU market that began to receive increased insurance benefits, thanks to SK Chemicals’ excellent marketing ability to do business with general hospitals. 

Kaloderm is the most frequently used DFU therapy in Korea, recording more than 400,000 times of use since 2005. Unlike other products, it can be mass-produced and stored frozen for a long time, allowing hospitals to supply it rapidly to patients when needed.

According to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the number of patients treated with DFU totaled 15,287 in 2019, an increase of 9.6 percent from 2015. About 28 percent of them had to undergo amputation surgery and showed a five-year survival rate of only 50 percent, indicating how dangerous complication DFU is, it said.

“The co-promotion agreement will be a successful model, and we will strive to promote public health by expanding product portfolios to diabetic complications,” d SK Chemicals Managing Director Kim Jung-hoon said.