Chong Kun Dang (CEO Kim Young-joo) is starting to develop new anti-cancer drugs by introducing antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology.
On the 3rd, Chong Kun Dang signed a contract to introduce antibody-drug conjugate technology with Synaffix BV, a Dutch biotechnology company. The size of the contract is USD 132 million (approximately KRW 165 billion), including the down payment, development, licensing, and sales milestones.
With this contract, Chong Kun Dang plans to secure the right to use Synapix’s three antibody-drug conjugate platform technologies, GlycoConnect™, HydraSpace™, and toxSYN™, and begin to develop ADC anticancer drugs in earnest.
Chong Kun Dang CEO Kim Young-joo said, “Chong Kun Dang is building expertise and know-how through the development of various anti-cancer drugs, such as the small cell lung cancer drug Calmtobel and the anti-cancer bispecific antibody CKD-702.” We will speed up the development,” he said.
Peter van de Sande, CEO of Synapix, said, “We are pleased that Synapix’s new antibody-drug conjugate technology is included in the pipeline of Chong Kun Dang, which has excellent capabilities in the field of anticancer drugs.” We plan to continue close and long-term cooperation so that we can develop innovative anticancer drugs that patients need.”
Synapix’s ADC platform technology is a next-generation technology that can realize site-specific conjugation in which an exact number of drugs are conjugated to an antibody at an exact location. While other technologies require antibody modification, Synapix’s technology can apply previously discovered antibodies as ADCs without modification, enabling safe and efficient production from toxicity while having superior efficacy than existing ADCs.
Chong Kun Dang has been conducting joint research with Synapix to discover competitive ADCs since 2019, securing ADCs with superior efficacy and safety compared to existing ADCs.