Pangen Biotech announced Monday that it signed a joint development agreement with Moogene Medi to develop a protein treatment using lipid nanoparticles (LNPs).

The two companies also applied for a patent on “LNPs for protein transfer” in July.

LNPs are transmitter substances of mRNA Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and Moderna. LNPs were successfully applied on pharmaceuticals, providing the technology to overcome the pandemic.

The two companies seek to win the patent on the platform technology that applies LNPs to protein therapeutics.

“We were able to significantly increase transfer efficiency within the cell of protein treatment and half-life in the body through a joint study,” said Pangen Biotech. “We expect to minimize immune side effects which occur in protein treatment administration.”

According to Pangen Biotech, the two companies are to apply platform technology to develop rare protein treatments first, and jointly apply for subsequent patents in the future.

Also, the two firms plan to conduct clinical trials separately and seek technology transfer to a multinational drugmaker after developing several rare drugs together.