New GERD drug Jaqbo wins grand prize in the Korean New Drug Development Award

Jaqbo, the 37th new drug initiated by Jeil Pharmaceutical and completed by Onconic Therapeutics, has been honored with the grand prize in the Korea New Drug Development Award.

Onconic Therapeutics said Wednesday that it will receive the award in the new drug development category for developing Jaqbo at the 26th Korea New Drug Development Award ceremony organized by the Korea Drug Research Association. The ceremony will be held at Samjeong Hotel in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on Friday.

The Korea New Drug Development Award was established in 1999 under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and ICT, Ministry of Health and Welfare, and Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy to develop the domestic pharmaceutical and bio-health industry and inspire new drug research and development.

Jaqbo (zastaprazan) is a new drug for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and is a P-CAB (potassium-competitive acid blocker) treatment. It won approval as a new drug from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in April last year after initial research by Jeil Pharmaceutical and subsequent development by Onconic Therapeutics.

Onconic Therapeutics is a subsidiary specializing in new drug development. It was established by Jeil Pharmaceutical in 2020 to research and develop new drugs. Since then, Jeil Pharmaceutical has been steadily investing in R&D to secure new drugs. The two companies' efforts to research and develop new drugs have resulted in the successful development of the 37th homegrown drug, Jaqbo, in four years, setting a positive precedent for new drug development.

Jaqbo was launched in Korea last October through Jeil Pharmaceutical, which has a strong sales force in the digestive system market and has been generating stable sales.

Onconic Therapeutics has a pipeline of dual-inhibitory targeted anticancer drugs in clinical trials to follow up on Jaqbo. Nesuparib, currently in development, is a dual-mechanism drug candidate that simultaneously inhibits PARP and Tankyrase. It is expected to significantly expand the therapeutic armamentarium of existing synthetic lethal anticancer drugs by addressing resistance following treatment with first-generation PARP inhibitors and by demonstrating efficacy in previously untreated cancer indications.

Nesuparib has received orphan drug designation for pancreatic cancer from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is currently in phase 1b/2 clinical trials for the first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer. Since last year, an additional investigator-initiated phase 2 study of the combination therapy with Keytruda in endometrial cancer has been underway. Nesuparib, which is being recognized as a next-generation anticancer drug, will present nonclinical results at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2025, one of the world's top three cancer conferences, in April.

“Jaqbo is a valuable result of a long period of human and material resources invested by Jeil Pharmaceutical and Onconic Therapeutics,” an Onconic Therapeutics official said. “The financial resources secured from the sales of the new drug will lead to the development of other innovative drugs by establishing a virtuous cycle that will lead to the subsequent pipeline.”