Aprogen(007460) is surging early after news that it secured global exclusive rights to its subsidiary's immune cell mobilizer "Burixafor."
As of 9:21 a.m. on the 26th, Aprogen was trading at 3,155 won on the Korea Exchange, up 655 won (26.20%) from the previous session.
Aprogen subsidiary AptN said it secured global exclusive rights to the immune cell mobilizer Burixafor (code name GPC-100) and combination therapies using it.
Under the agreement, AptN will pay 6.5 billion won to counterparty GPCRT. It also plans to pay the original developer GPCR Therapeutics an advance of 500 million won and up to 472 billion won in milestones depending on development progress.
GPC-100 is a "hematopoietic stem cell mobilizer" that moves immune cells residing in bone marrow or tissues into the blood. It completed a phase 2 trial in Oct. last year at 10 U.S. institutions in patients with hematologic cancers, including multiple myeloma. The related study results were presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and were subsequently published in Feb. in the international journal "Annals of Hematology."
The company expects GPC-100 can be used as a booster for "in vivo CAR-T" (a therapy that creates CAR-T cells directly inside the patient), a next-generation cancer treatment.
In vivo CAR-T delivers genes directly to a patient's T cells, but it has a limitation in that there may not be enough T cells eligible for gene delivery. According to the company, GPC-100 can increase the number of T cells in the blood by up to more than 10 times within one hour after administration.
A company official said, "Just as global pharmaceutical company Merck adopted hyaluronidase as a booster in developing a subcutaneous formulation of Keytruda, GPC-100 is likely to be adopted as an essential booster for in vivo CAR-T therapies developed in the future."