Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF) has selected four companies -- Medytox, TiumBio, AbClon, and MedPacto as part of its “2023 third National New Drug Development Project”.
The project is an inter-ministerial research and development (R&D) project that supports the entire cycle of new drug development, including the discovery of candidate substances in non-clinical and clinical trials, to strengthen the global competitiveness of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
Medytox has been selected for the “New Drug R&D Ecosystem Establishment Research Project,” which aids in bringing promising candidate substances to clinical stages.
The project will allow the company to receive research and development funding for MT122, an antibody therapy pipeline developed for treating myasthenia gravis, a rare autoimmune disease.
"With the selection of MT122 into the project, we will accelerate our new drug development and aim to leap forward as a global biopharmaceutical company through the development of new pipelines,” a Medytox official said.
TiumBio's TU7710, a hemophilia treatment candidate, has also been selected by the KDDF to partake in the phase 1 clinical drug development project.
TiumBio plans to evaluate the safety and tolerability of TU7710 in healthy adult males during phase 1 trials and determine the optimal dosage for future phase 2 study.
The company will receive 1.75 billion won ($) over the next two years.
"Based on our expertise and experience in developing hemophilia treatments, we will develop a next-generation innovative drug that can dramatically improve patients' quality of life,” TiumBio CEO Kim Hun-taek said.
KDDF has also selected MedPacto’s MP2021 has been selected as a non-clinical drug development support project and will receive a total of 1.5 billion won in research funding over two years.
MedPacto plans to proceed with the development of MP2021, aiming for investigational new drug (IND) application approval or technology transfer for the subsequent phase 1 clinical trial.
"Based on our extensive clinical experience with vactosertib, we will accelerate the entry of MP2021 into phase 1 clinical trials,” a company official said.
AbClon's AM109, a treatment candidate for intractable prostate cancer, specifically targeting PSMA cancer protein and T-cell 4-1BB using dual-antibody affinity map platform technology, has also been selected in the KDDF project.
"With the support of KDDF, we can accelerate our research on new pipelines and focus on developing a dual antibody drug that significantly improves the survival rate of prostate cancer patients,” a company official said.