JW Pharmaceutical said a lead compound for prostate cancer refractory or resistant to standard therapies, developed by its subsidiary C&C Research Laboratories, has been selected for national drug development. 

The national drug development project, a cross-ministerial national R&D program, is run by the Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF). This fund supports the entire life cycle of new drug development for 10 years from 2021, aiming to strengthen the Korean R&D ecosystem, create global commercialization results, and create public benefits in the healthcare sector. 

Over the next two years, C&C Research Laboratories plans to use the support fund to optimize a lead compound that directly inhibits XBP1s and develop it as an oral first-in-class cancer drug candidate.

XBP1s are proteins that are highly expressed in several solid tumors, and their overexpression plays an important role in the proliferation of various cancers. Specifically, XBP1s increase the activity of genes involved in cancer cell survival, impairing the effectiveness of standard therapies, and interfering with the anti-cancer response of immune cells, allowing cancer cells to evade immune attack.

C&C Research Laboratories said its lead compound showed excellent anti-cancer effects by directly binding to and inhibiting the XBP1s protein and tumor formation in cellular experiments. Drug response tests in animal models of prostate cancer also showed superior antitumor efficacy compared to the control group, the company said.

C&C Research Laboratories plans to derive a non-clinical drug candidate by 2025 through structure optimization studies of XBP1s-targeting antitumor drug leads. 

"Prostate cancer, the second most common cancer in men, has a high demand for innovative new drugs with new mechanisms of action due to resistance and refractoriness to the primary standard hormone therapy," said an official at JW Pharmaceutical. "We will develop a lead compound targeting XBP1s into innovative anti-cancer drugs that can overcome the limitations of existing treatments not only for prostate cancer but also for various solid cancers."