Handok and CMG Pharmaceutical said they have applied to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for starting the phase 1 clinical trials of pan-tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) inhibition anticancer treatment candidate.

The two companies are developing the drug alongside the National OncoVenture under the National Cancer Center (NCC). The medicine uses a new mechanism of selectively inhibiting TRK protein, which can develop various cancers such as thyroid, non-small cell lung and colon cancer, and polymorphous glioblastoma.

The company expects that the treatment will help treat cancer patients who have a rearrangement of the TRK gene group suffering from no available treatment.

“We will do our best to develop innovative global anti-cancer drugs by combining our capabilities with CMG Pharmaceutical and the National OncoVenture,” Handok CEO Kim Young-jin said.

CMG Pharmaceutical CEO Lee Joo-hyung said, “We will utilize the experience and infrastructure of CMG Pharmaceutical, Handok’s R&D technology and NCC’s development project team to create a world-class anticancer drug.”