Celltrion said it signed a joint R&D contract with GeneMedicine, a Korean anticancer virus development company, to develop CT-P6 (ingredient: trastuzumab), a Herceptin biosimilar, into a new administration form.

Under the contract, Celltrion will provide the raw material of CT-P6 for developing it into a systemic administration treatment form, and GeneMedicine will be in charge of non-clinical trials.

Systemic administration is a platform that administers drugs into the circulatory system rather than through the traditional vein.

In general, most systemically administered viruses fail to reach tumor tissues, owing to rapid clearance by the host immune system and poor tumor tropism of the viruses.

However, GeneMedicine has developed a proprietary nanomaterial-based platform technology that enables effective and tumor-targeted systemic administration of oncolytic viruses.

This system attenuates nonspecific sequestration of systemically administered virus in normal tissues and exponentially improves intratumoral accumulation of the virus, thus leading to a superior safety profile and antitumor efficacy.

The two companies plan to develop platform technology with the goal of ending the non-clinical trial by the end of this year and actively cooperate in developing the platform technology by exchanging essential information necessary for non-clinical trials.

Celltrion also secured the right to exercise the right to negotiate for a global license for the platform technology after confirming the non-clinical results.

“By participating in developing a systemic anticancer virus administration platform technology, Celltrion has expanded its anticancer pipeline, including previously acquired antibody-drug conjugate and bispecific antibody candidates under development,” a Celltrion official said.