Starting this year, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety will jointly develop technology to evaluate the safety of next-generation anticancer drugs with the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI).
On the 10th, the Food and Drug Safety Evaluation Institute under the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced that it signed a memorandum of understanding with the NCI last November to promote international joint research necessary for the development of evaluation technology for next-generation anticancer drugs starting this year. The NCI is considered one of the world’s leading research institutions dedicated to cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, and is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
For this project, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety will provide 9 billion won over four years from 2025 to 2028. The two institutions will collaborate to support the development of personalized anticancer vaccines that enhance the antigen-based immune response for individual cancer patients to treat tumors. They will develop technology to evaluate the safety of anticancer vaccines that utilize new technologies such as synthetic peptides and messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), and establish a platform to predict safety by using animal models and organoids.
A Ministry of Food and Drug Safety official noted, "We expect this research will serve as an opportunity to strengthen research collaboration with the NCI" and added, "We plan to do our best to develop and disseminate international-level safety evaluation technology based on regulatory science expertise in the future."
This research will recruit researchers until February 3. Institutions or researchers interested in participating can find more details on the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's research management system (rnd.mfds.go.kr) or the Integrated Research Support System (www.iris.go.kr).