Kim Hyeon-su, who leads Pharmicell, Korea's first-generation stem cell corporations, is a former professor of hematology-oncology at Ajou University Hospital. Meeting at the Westin Josun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 6th, Kim said, "I heard countless times, 'Why leave a stable university hospital to take the hard road?'"
Kim founded the company in 2002 while serving as a professor, saying he would use his specialty to propose a new therapy. "At the university hospital, bone marrow containing hematopoietic stem cells was my specialty," he said, adding, "My experience performing Korea's first autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation became the starting point for the startup." Hematopoietic stem cells are cells that produce various blood components such as red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. They are one of the adult stem cells that keep proliferating and differentiate into multiple cell types.
Most domestic bio corporations remain in the red as they invest in technology development. In this environment, Pharmicell is drawing market attention with steep earnings growth. The company's operating profit in the first half of this year was 16.5 billion won, a 71-fold surge from the same period last year. Last year's revenue was about 64.8 billion won, and the company projected full-year revenue this year will reach around 110 billion won.
◇ "Two growth engines: AI and stem cells"
Behind Pharmicell's growth is a two-pronged business structure. The company consists of the "biomedical division," which develops, sells, and stores stem cell therapies, and the "biochemical division," which develops raw materials used in new drug development and produces core component materials for semiconductors and telecommunications. In 2012, Kim acquired IDBchem, a specialty bio materials corporations, and merged it into Pharmicell to push the business forward.
"Since the second half of last year, growth in the biochemical division has taken off," Kim said. "Sales of low-dielectric electronic materials, raw materials used in substrates for artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators, have surged sharply and are driving the company's growth," he said.
Was it a foresight into a future swept by the AI boom? He said, "It wasn't that we were strategically aiming for diversification from the start," adding, "We made the acquisition seeing the value of PEG and nucleoside technologies needed for protein therapeutics and improved drugs."
PEG refers to polyethylene glycol. This substance is a key material used in drug delivery technologies. By conjugating with protein therapeutics or improved drugs, it protects the drug, extends its half-life in the body, and increases stability. Nucleosides are core raw materials of genetic substances DNA and RNA and can be used to make gene diagnostics and therapies.
"At the time of acquiring the chemical division, sales were small and it was in the red," Kim said. "After the acquisition, we continued to invest in factory relocation and facility expansion, and the technologies we secured have become the foundation of the company's growth," he said. Pharmicell supplies mPEG and nucleic acids to global pharmaceutical companies.
The chemical division also developed low-dielectric materials that reduce electrical interference between semiconductor circuits to improve signal transmission speed and efficiency, and it supplies them to affiliates of large corporations. Kim expected demand for AI-related electronic materials to continue to increase. "We are building a third plant in Ulsan, aiming for completion in the second half of next year," he said. "This site will produce not only chemical electronic materials but also artificial blood."
◇ "Combining stem cells and AI to suppress aging and restore function"
While serving as head of the corporations, Kim still operates a private clinic. He said he keeps practicing because it allows him to confirm the effects of the stem cell therapies the company developed. "Patients with myocardial infarction who are so short of breath they can't even walk one lap around the hospital improve after receiving stem cell therapy," he said. "The same goes for patients with liver cirrhosis and kidney disease." He said the number of foreign patients coming from the Middle East, including Abu Dhabi, has recently been increasing.
In July 2011, Pharmicell received product approval for "Hearticellgram-AMI," a stem cell therapy for acute myocardial infarction, from the Korea Food and Drug Administration (now the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety). It was the world's first approved stem cell therapy. Since then, the company has also been developing stem cell therapies for patients with liver cirrhosis and chronic renal failure.
An amendment to the Advanced Regenerative Medicine Act, passed by the National Assembly in February this year, has provided a springboard that is accelerating Pharmicell's development of stem cell therapies. "Patient enrollment for the phase 3 clinical trial of Cellgram-LC, a stem cell therapy for treating liver cirrhosis, is about 80% complete," Kim said. "Once the clinical trial is finished, Pharmicell will be the only corporations in Korea to have two stem cell therapies."
Kim also introduced the follow-up pipeline (drug candidates). Cellgram-CKD is a stem cell therapy for chronic kidney disease developed by Pharmicell. It demonstrated safety in a phase 1 clinical trial in 2024. "Cellgram-CKD aims to obtain approval for advanced regenerative medicine clinical research early next year," Kim said. "Cellgram-ED, being developed as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, has completed a phase 2 clinical trial and is under follow-up observation."
Kim cited "reverse aging," "bio AI," and "DNA memory" as the core keywords for Pharmicell's future growth strategy.
"Tracking patients who received stem cell therapy for more than 10 years showed a marked decrease in eight aging-related genes and a reverse-aging pattern in about 740 genes," he said. "We confirmed signals that stem cells induce 'rejuvenation' at the cellular level."
Based on these research results, Kim recently filed a patent titled "biomarkers of stem cell aging and methods for evaluating aging using the same." "It is a technology that can quantitatively measure the biological age of cells and predict the effects of anti-aging treatments," he said, adding, "It will become a core platform for AI-based, patient-tailored anti-aging drug development."
A memory chip made of DNA is also under study. "DNA can store information with four bases—A, T, G, and C—so it has a much higher storage density than silicon chips based on the binary system of 0 and 1," Kim said. "Based on Pharmicell's PEG technology and nanoscale material capabilities, we plan to begin full-fledged research on the feasibility of implementing DNA memory."