Genome & Company announced on the 12th that it has transferred technology for an immune cancer treatment candidate substance to the British anticancer drug development company Ellipses Pharma Limited.
GENA-104 is an immune cancer treatment candidate substance that Genome & Company has discovered for the first time, targeting CNTN4. It works by inhibiting CNTN4 to activate T cells (immune cells) to kill cancer cells.
It attracted attention as a new candidate substance targeting tumor surfaces at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) last year. The anticancer effect was proven in animal experiments, and it received approval for its Phase 1 clinical trial plan (IND) from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety earlier last year. In October of last year, key research results for GENA-104 were published in the international academic journal Science Immunology.
Under this technology transfer agreement, Ellipses Pharma will be responsible for all clinical development, including Phase 1 trials. The clinical trials will initially start in South Korea, and plans for clinical trials in the U.S. and Europe will be submitted in the future. Genome & Company will receive all revenue generated from the commercialization of GENA-104.
Tobias Arkenau, the global head of new drug development and chief medical officer at Ellipses Pharma, said, "We are pleased to introduce the CNTN-4 targeted antibody," adding that "GENA-104 can be particularly noteworthy in various cancer types that show low responses to existing immune checkpoint inhibitors."
Earlier, in May of last year, Genome & Company transferred technology for an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidate substance to the Swiss pharmaceutical company Debiopharm. This is the second technology transfer contract in eight months.
Hong Yoo-suk, CEO of Genome & Company, noted, "GENA-104 has already demonstrated potential in preclinical studies," and added, "With the IND approval for domestic Phase 1 trials, we can confirm its potential in clinical settings by utilizing Ellipses Pharma's abundant funding and capabilities in cancer drug development."