Yonsei University Health System (YUHS) said it signed a collaborative agreement with KURE.AI Therapeutics, a U.S. biotech firm, to cooperate on the development of cell therapies.

Under this partnership, the two institutions plan to establish a company focused on developing cell therapies for solid tumors jointly. They aim to leverage YUHS's clinical infrastructure with KURE.AI Therapeutics' rapid manufacturing platform for chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) therapies and their capabilities in discovering and developing therapeutic targets.

KURE.AI Therapeutics, co-founded by faculty from the Mayo Clinic and Case Western Reserve University, is a biotech enterprise specializing in AI-based cell therapies. The company is planning to enter clinical trials for its solid tumor cell therapies within the year.

"The signing ceremony marks a leap forward for Yonsei to overcome intractable diseases and the beginning of a new model of industry-academia collaboration," YUHS President and CEO Yoon Dong-sup said. "YUHS will lead the way in the field of cell and gene therapy, which is expected to have a large economic impact among the advanced biofields."

Meanwhile, YUHS has been proactive in global research collaborations. It participated in the Korea-U.S. Cluster Roundtable in Boston during President Yoon Suk Yeol's visit to the U.S. in April last year to discuss policy cooperation.

It also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Massachusetts General Hospital for cell therapy development, paving the way for global clinical development collaborations, and it hosted the Global Gastric Cancer Summit 2023 in June, establishing a research collaboration foundation to tackle intractable solid tumors.