Artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery corporations Galux said on the 2nd it will team up with Celltrion to co-develop next-generation autoimmune disease treatments based on multi-specific antibodies. The two companies aim to develop differentiated multi-specific antibodies that can target multiple pathways at once, with greater precision and efficiency.
In this collaboration, Galux will handle AI-based antibody design and early validation of drug candidates, while Celltrion will lead end-to-end development from preclinical and clinical studies to commercialization. Through this, the companies plan to shorten the development timeline from discovery to clinical stages and build a new drug development model that raises the probability of clinical success.
Unlike monoclonal antibodies, multi-specific antibodies recognize two or more different targets. They have drawn attention as a new alternative for several intractable diseases because they can deliver higher therapeutic efficacy than conventional monoclonal antibody treatments.
Galux's AI-based protein design technology can precisely engineer interactions between therapeutic targets and antibodies at the molecular level, enabling rapid identification of candidates with optimal properties even for complex multi-specific antibody development. Galux has a proprietary platform, "GaluxDesign," that combines AI with physicochemical principles, and its core technology is a de novo approach that designs new proteins from scratch without referencing existing proteins.
Recently, the platform achieved an antibody design success rate of over 30% across multiple targets. The company was founded by Seok Cha-ok, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Seoul National University, who has researched protein structure prediction technology for more than 20 years.
Celltrion has recently strengthened its open innovation strategy by actively bringing in external breakthrough technologies to develop diverse new therapeutic modalities, including multi-specific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates (ADC). This collaboration is expected to dramatically accelerate the development speed and raise the success rate of next-generation antibody therapies by combining Celltrion's extensive development and clinical know-how with Galux's innovative AI design technology.
Galux CEO Seok Cha-ok said, "AI-based protein design technology is changing the paradigm of drug development by not only speeding development and reducing expense, but also enabling the precise realization of candidates with predefined structures and functions from the outset," adding, "Through collaboration with Celltrion, it is highly meaningful that we can implement this new development model in real-world industrial settings."
Lee Su-young, head of new drug research at Celltrion, said, "For high-difficulty drug development such as multi-specific antibodies, diverse approaches that transcend technical limits are essential," and added, "Through collaboration with Galux, we will lead the evolving drug development paradigm and jointly build a foundation for Korea's bio ecosystem to grow sustainably."