AprilBio said on the 4th it ended early a joint research and development agreement signed in 2022 with Yuhan. The company plans to reorganize its research and development strategy around next-generation therapeutic delivery modalities such as antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) and antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOC) to respond to changes in the global biotech market.
The company signed a joint research and development agreement with Yuhan in Aug. 2022 that combined fusion protein technology with anticancer targeting technology. The upfront payment was not disclosed as a trade secret and is nonrefundable.
The termination was decided while the project remained in the early stage of candidate discovery and had not progressed to the clinical stage. The company said it will realign its development strategy around pipelines with strong commercial potential and competitiveness.
AprilBio has recently taken note of the rapid shift in the global pharmaceutical and biotech industry toward new modalities such as ADCs and AOCs. Its strategy is to focus its R&D capabilities on high-growth areas based on its in-house platform REMAP.
Next month at the Bio USA exhibition in San Diego, the United States, the company plans to disclose proof-of-concept (POC) results for the REMAP platform and begin full-fledged global partnering. Announcements of clinical results for key pipelines APB-A1 and APB-R3 are also planned.
An AprilBio official said, "We are strengthening a strategy of selection and concentration in line with shifts in investment and development directions among global companies," adding, "We will enhance corporate value by focusing on pipelines with strong market potential using the REMAP platform."