JW Pharmaceutical said Monday that it has signed a strategic investment agreement with Argonaut Therapeutics, a British company developing next-generation anticancer drugs based on epigenetics.

Under the agreement, JW Pharma invested 3 billion won ($2.6 million) in Argonaut Therapeutics and acquired a 25 percent stake in the company. Through the acquisition, the company has become a qualified party as the second major shareholder following the Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI), a U.K. venture capital investment company.

Argonaut is an Oxford University venture startup founded in 2016. The company is developing a targeted anticancer agent that inhibits E2F-1 methylation by using protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5), which in turn, inhibits tumor cell proliferation and cell division.

The company is conducting a non-clinical study of the PRMT5 inhibitor with indications of glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer and metastatic gastric cancer. Argonaut plans to use JW Pharma’s investment in developing its PRMT5 inhibitor.

“JW Pharma expects that Argonaut’s PRMT5 inhibitors will be superior in efficacy and safety due to their high selectivity to competitive drugs being developed by multinational pharmaceutical companies,” a company official said. “We plan to further strengthen our innovative drug development capabilities by expanding research cooperation with Argonaut Therapeutics and also by European research institutes and its R&D networks.”

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