Korean pharmaceutical and biotech firms publicized their competitiveness, unveiling latest pipelines at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the largest event for healthcare investment in the world.
More than 450 pharmaceuticals from 120 countries attended the conference held in San Francisco from Monday to Thursday. About 20 Korean drugmakers joined the event to present their latest products and business plans to investors.
SK Biopharmaceuticals said Thursday it introduced new drugs soon to be commercialized as well as its marketing strategies to investors and global partner firms during the conference.
CEO Cho Jeong-woo mainly explained about his company’s global business capability and development strategies for clinical pipelines. Cho said that the company has completed requesting an FDA approval for sales of sleep order treatment SKL-N05. He also promoted the results of the phase-3 clinical trial on epilepsy therapy Cenobamate.
Aiming to hammer out another license-out deal, Hanmi Pharmaceutical CEO Kwon Se-chang introduced a new treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). He also presented three innovative drugs in the areas of rare diseases such as congenital hyperinsulinemia, mucopolysaccharidosis, and short-bowel syndrome.
LG Chem announced a plan to focus their R&D on new drugs for metabolic diseases, immunology, and cancer, considering their marketability and opportunity factors. LG’s plan also included expanding new drug pipelines utilizing technologies and ideas from outside, as well as the company’s research.
Dong-A ST reached an agreement with AstraZeneca to jointly study leading and candidate substances of AstraZeneca’s three immunotherapy targets in development.
Rising as a global biosimilar maker, Celltrion was also keen on delivering its key strategies at the four-day conference. Celltrion founder and chairman, Seo Jung-jin, presented the status of Truxima and Hurzuma, and schedules of new pipelines – biosimilars referencing Humira and Avastin. Seo also disclosed how the clinical trial on new antibody drug candidate CT-P27 (pandemic/seasonal flu) was progressing.
Samsung BioLogics CEO Kim Tae-han demonstrated a presentation on the competitiveness of the existing business and an expansion of contract development organization (CDO) business.