Celltrion said Monday that it has acquired a controlling stake of Iksuda Therapeutics, a British antibody-drug conjugate developer, to secure ADC-based new drug pipelines.

"Celltrion, together with the Mirae Asset Group, has signed a contract to invest $47 million (53 billion won) into Iksuda and become its largest shareholder," the company said. "Celltrion and Mirae Assets Group have completed the execution of half of the investment and plan to execute the other half immediately after Iksuda completes certain milestones."

Celltrion and Mirae Asset Group created a 150 billion won fund to finance the acquisition of Iksuda's shares. In addition to Celltrion, Mirae Asset Capital, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Mirae Asset Securities, and Premier Partners participated in this investment as institutional investors.

"Celltrion was looking for a business model that could generate revenue and value from products other than biosimilars and chemical drugs," the company said. "Against this backdrop, we decided to invest in Iksuda, which specializes in ADC, as it can create synergy with Celltrion's antibody treatments."

Iksuda has four preclinical ADC pipelines, including IKS03 that targets CD19 and treats of B-cell lymphoma, and a linker-payload platform, a drug-antibody conjugate platform technology.

Celltrion expects that Iksuda's ADC pipeline will enable the development of more diverse anticancer drugs for its anticancer drugs, such as Truxima and Herzuma. In addition, the Korean company plans to develop new drug substances by developing its ADC platform technology.

"Celltrion will continue to make various investments to expand the treatment area and find new growth engines for the future," a company official said. "Based on the recent investment in Iksuda, the company plans to maximize the pipeline by developing next-generation anticancer drugs while creating synergies with the antibody drugs the company owns."

According to Celltrion, ADC technology can take advantage of its potent cytotoxic effects while reducing systemic toxicity. In addition, it has the advantage of exhibiting anticancer effects by selectively delivering drugs to cancer tissues by utilizing the cancer antigen recognition ability of the antibody, which, in turn, maximizes the treatment's efficacy even with a minimum dose.