JW Bioscience said on Tuesday that it registered a domestic patent regarding the use of two antibodies that specifically bind to tryptophan-tRNA synthetase (WRS) as a biomarker capable of early sepsis diagnosis.

WRS is a biomarker that is secreted into the blood before TNF-α and interleukin-6 to protect the body against infection from external substances. According to a paper published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, WRS is more useful for early detection and mortality prediction than conventional sepsis and inflammation diagnostic biomarkers like procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), and IL-6.

Through joint research and development, JW Bioscience and CureBio Therapeutics have discovered new antibodies that respond to WRS. Accordingly, JW Bioscience plans to use this antibody’s specific WRS protein targeting ability to create diagnostic kits for the diagnosis of infectious diseases such as sepsis.

Moreover, JW Bioscience said it was the only company in the global market that has patents for WRS source technology and specific binding antibodies. Prior to securing the patent, JW Bioscience received WRS source technology from the Medicinal Bioconvergence Research Center (Biocon) in 2016 and subsequently secured patents in Korea in 2017, the U.S. and Japan in 2020, and China and Europe in 2021.

JW Bioscience is seeking domestic approval for a rapid diagnosis kit for sepsis containing this antibody which is expected to accelerate the development of point-of-care of care diagnostics tests (POCT). Existing sepsis diagnostic markers are only capable of diagnosing infection by bacteria, but unlike the WRS protein, cannot detect sepsis infections caused by viruses and fungi.

"As the only company in the world with WRS-related technology patents, we will do our best to commercialize diagnostic kits and strengthen our competitiveness in the global in vitro diagnostic market,” said an official from JW Bioscience.