Arbor Med, a bio venture company that develops new drugs for rare and incurable diseases, said Tuesday that it opened a research and development center in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province.

"With the opening of the R&D center, the company expects to accelerate the development of its intractable rare disease drug pipeline," Arbor Med said. "We particularly aim to discover and target small molecule therapeutic substances for tumor treatment and conduct basic efficacy experiments."

Through such researches, the company plans to derive a treatment for rare diseases for which there is no specific cure and advance to early technology transfer and joint development with global pharmaceutical companies in the non-clinical stage, it added.

Arbor Med is currently developing a treatment for Wilson's disease to enter a clinical trial in 2023. It also is developing a therapy for indications, such as acute respiratory failure syndrome and hereditary hearing loss.

"Arbor Med is a pipeline development-oriented bio venture that has research manpower for the entire process from early candidate materials discovery to business development," Arbor Med CTO Im Weon-bin said. "With the opening of the R&D center, the company will enhance its pipeline development capabilities."

The company will take one step closer to true open innovation through continuous networking such as joint research and business development with other companies in Pangyo, Im added.

CEO Park Kyo-jin also said, "Arbor Med is a bio venture with a head office in Korea and an offshoot in the U.S., and through the establishment of this R&D center, it has all acquired all three elements of a bio venture -- headquarters, research institute, and overseas subsidiaries -- for global market development."

The company plans to speed up its global expansion by quickly raising its pipeline R&D capabilities, Park added.