VaxCell-Bio, a biotech company in Korea specializing in immunotherapies, has been awarded a $215,000 grant through the G-Rex Grant Program.

This program, supported by leading global cell and gene therapy manufacturers such as ScaleReady, Wilson Wolf, and Cell Ready, recognized VaxCell-Bio for its advanced chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) and CAR-modified immune lymphocytes (CAR-MILs) therapy development technologies.

On Tuesday, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with the program’s founding companies.

This collaboration will provide critical support, including the optimization of current good manufacturing practice (cGMP)-based G-Rex closed-system manufacturing processes for CAR-T and CAR-MILs development. It also enables VaxCell-Bio to establish new global partnerships.

The G-Rex system, an advanced platform for large-scale culturing of immune cells such as T cells and natural killer (NK) cells, is becoming a global standard in CAR-T cell therapy manufacturing.

VaxCell-Bio plans to use the platform to scale up early experiments for CAR-T and CAR-MILs therapies, implement advanced manufacturing systems, and secure data packages necessary for investigational new drug (IND) trials.

“Being selected as a recipient of the G-Rex Grant Program highlights the global recognition of VaxCell-Bio’s pioneering technology and innovative business strategies for CAR-T and CAR-MILs development,” VaxCell-Bio CEO Lee Je-jung said. “This milestone will accelerate our efforts to form partnerships with domestic and international biopharmaceutical companies and push forward with commercialization.”

The grant is the latest in a series of achievements for VaxCell-Bio. Last year, the company’s project to develop multi-target CAR-T therapies targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) and ephrin type-A receptor 2 (EphA2) was designated a national research initiative under Korea’s New Drug Development Project (KDDF).

Additionally, VaxCell-Bio presented preclinical results of its B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) CAR-MILs therapy in mice at the Korean Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation conference in Busan and filed related international patents.