GC Cell announced on Monday that it has signed a joint research and development agreement with ProEn Therapeutics, a company specializing in protein-based new drug development, to discover candidate substances for cell therapies targeting solid tumors.

This collaboration aims to accelerate the development of next-generation cell therapies for solid tumors, where significant unmet medical needs exist, by combining GC Cell's proprietary chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology and immune cell culture platform with ProEn Therapeutics' independently developed platform technology, ArtBody.

ArtBody is a pseudo-antibody development platform that enables precise control of binding affinity to antigen proteins, based on its stable structure and broad target expandability. The two companies confirmed through a preliminary feasibility test that CARs engineered with ArtBody are effectively expressed in immune cells, bind to target proteins, and exert cytotoxic functions.

Through this joint research, GC Cell plans to continuously expand its solid tumor pipeline targeting new indications while broadening ArtBody's application scope beyond CAR-NK to include CAR-T therapies.

“We expect to secure new cell therapy candidates in the solid tumor field through our collaboration with ProEn Therapeutics,” GC Cell CEO Won Sung-yong said. “We will combine the technical strengths of both companies to generate meaningful research outcomes.”

ProEn Therapeutics CEO Lee Il-han also expressed optimism, saying, “Applying ArtBody could enable the development of therapies that overcome the toxicity issues previously identified as limitations of existing CAR cell therapies while demonstrating enhanced efficacy in solid tumors.”