Daewoong Pharmaceutical said on the 10th that a new drug candidate it is developing to treat neuroinflammatory autoimmune diseases was finally selected as a new recipient for the "2025 2nd National New Drug Development Project."
With this selection, Daewoong Pharmaceutical will receive research funding from the National New Drug Development Project Team for the next two years and begin preclinical studies on the candidate. The National New Drug Development Project is a cross-ministerial research and development (R&D) program running for 10 years from 2021, aiming to support the entire cycle of domestic new drug development to strengthen global competitiveness and generate practical results.
Daewoong Pharmaceutical is developing the autoimmune disease treatment candidate as a therapy for multiple sclerosis (MS). Multiple sclerosis occurs when the immune system is wrongly activated and attacks myelin, the protective sheath around the spinal cord and nerve cells, leading to signal transmission problems that cause a range of symptoms such as weakened strength in the arms and legs, sensory abnormalities, blurred vision and extreme fatigue. Damaged myelin is difficult to restore, so the disease tends to become chronic.
Most treatments currently on the market cannot cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), limiting adequate drug delivery into the central nervous system. As a result, it has been difficult to directly address the root cause of inflammation.
Daewoong Pharmaceutical's new drug candidate was designed to address these weaknesses. The company said the candidate, with strong BBB permeability, can directly reach inflamed regions inside the brain and spinal cord, selectively modulate only immune cells and glial cells that drive inflammation to reduce side effects such as infection risk, and is also expected to protect nerve cells.
Park Jun-seok, head of the New Drug Discovery Center at Daewoong Pharmaceutical, said, "This project is a strategic new drug development initiative that directly targets neuroinflammation," adding, "Multiple sclerosis is a disease where existing treatments have faced limits due to BBB issues, so our goal is to offer a differentiated treatment option with a candidate that has excellent BBB permeability."