Huons will begin developing a treatment for Crohn's disease, a rare, intractable intestinal disorder. The aim is to address treatment limits for Crohn's patients who have a high dependence on surgery because there is still no therapy that directly targets fibrosis.
The company said on the 23rd that it was selected for the "new drug R&D ecosystem establishment research (candidate substances)" project led by the National New Drug Development Project. Over the next two years, with government support, it will identify a fibrosis-stricture Crohn's disease drug candidate based on a transglutaminase 2 (TG2) inhibitor and push to enter the preclinical stage.
Fibrosis-stricture Crohn's disease is a condition in which chronic inflammation of the intestinal mucosa recurs, causing the intestinal wall to thicken and narrowing strictures to form. To date, there is no approved therapy that directly targets fibrosis, leading many patients to rely on surgery.
Existing drug development has focused on suppressing fibrosis induced by inflammation, but there have been limits to blocking the actual progression of fibrosis itself. Huons emphasized its differentiation in attempting an approach that controls the "progression process" of fibrosis itself through a TG2 inhibitor.
The company is expanding its new drug pipeline with treatments for dry eye disease, EGFR-targeted lung cancer, fibrotic diseases, and small-molecule obesity, while also conducting research on new modalities in parallel.
It is also applying its artificial intelligence (AI)-based new drug development platform, HUAS (Huons AI System), across the full research cycle to improve candidate discovery and development efficiency. The company plans to use HUAS in this Crohn's disease project as well to speed entry into preclinical testing.
Park Kyung-mi, executive vice president and head of research and development at Huons, said, "This TG2 inhibitor project aims for a first-in-class innovative drug that offers a new treatment option for patients with fibrosis-stricture Crohn's disease, who lack alternatives," adding, "We will develop it into a globally competitive drug with a mechanism that regulates not the result of fibrosis but the progression stage itself."