CHA Biotech said Monday that its tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) cell therapy, CHATIL, has been selected for support by the Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF). Over the next two years, the company will receive R&D funding to acquire key technologies and non-clinical data necessary for clinical entry.

TIL cell therapy is a personalized immuno-oncology approach that involves selecting T cells from a patient’s tumor tissue that recognize and respond to cancer cells, expanding them in large numbers, and reinfusing them to induce anti-cancer effects.

Interest in TIL therapy has been rising since Iovance Biotherapeutics' AMTAGVI became the world’s first FDA-approved TIL treatment last year.

CHA Biotech is developing TIL cell therapy CHATIL for recurrent ovarian cancer and plans to fulfill this task by developing its next-generation TIL pipeline, CHATIL-102-OC, in earnest. It plans to select high-functional TILs through a differentiated pretreatment process, develop an automated production process for functionally enhanced TILs, and secure key data for optimal combination treatment regimens before applying for phase 1 IND approval.

The KDDF project is a government-backed interagency R&D initiative launched to boost the global competitiveness of Korea’s pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Over 10 years from 2021, it aims to support the full life cycle of new drug development, strengthen the domestic R&D ecosystem, drive global commercialization, and deliver public health benefits.

“By successfully executing this government project, we will build a T-cell platform with enhanced functionality and automate the mass production process to speed up commercialization and secure a leading position in the global immune cell therapy market,” said Nam Su-yeon, president of R&D at CHA Biotech.