Alteogen said on the 1st that it will receive a $25 million (about 35 billion won) milestone payment from U.S. Merck (MSD) following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the subcutaneous (SC) formulation of the anticancer drug Keytruda, "Keytruda Qurex (Keytruda)."
The milestone amount is about 34% of Alteogen's revenue on a consolidation basis last year (102.8 billion won). The company said, "We issued the invoice the previous day and, under the contract terms, expect to receive the fee within 30 days."
Keytruda Qurex applies ALT-B4, Alteogen's proprietary human hyaluronidase platform, to convert the existing intravenous formulation into a subcutaneous formulation, and the FDA approved it on the 20th of last month. The subcutaneous formulation can drastically reduce the dosing time, which previously took 4–5 hours by intravenous infusion, to within 1–2 minutes.
Alteogen said, "This achievement demonstrates that our core technology ALT-B4 has delivered meaningful results at the global commercialization stage," and added, "Additional milestone revenue is expected going forward depending on the progress of clinical trials, approvals, and commercialization." Meanwhile, Alteogen exported ALT-B4 technology to MSD in June 2020, and in Feb. 2024 disclosed the development items with its partner through a contract amendment.