바이오스펙테이터

by Sungmin Kim

Series A-B Bridge Investment to attract 3 billion won for strategic investment (SI) from domestic pharmaceutical companies such as ST Pharm and Jeil Pharmaceutical

Autotelic Bio, an innovative new drug research and development company based on Oligonucleotide, announced on the 14th that it has attracted 3 billion won strategic investment (SI) from domestic pharmaceutical companies such as ST Pharm and Jeil Pharmaceutical.

This is an investment in the form of a bridge for Series B investment that is planned for the third quarter of next year as an additional investment in 10 months since it attracted Series A investment in February this year.

An official from Autotelic Bio explained, " ST Pharm and Jeil Pharm are participating in this investment for joint development or future joint development partnerships as they highly value the global business and technological innovation of the Autotelic pipeline."

Autotelic Bio is developing an immuno-target dual action anticancer drug (Immuno-Target Dual Action Onco-therapeutic) based on oligonucleotides. With this strategic investment funding, it plans to focus on the development of new pipelines, such as developing technologies to improve the in vivo half-life and cell permeability of synthetic oligonucleotides, and developing new target anticancer drugs.

Particularly, ST Pharm, which participated in this strategic investment, is the world's third largest manufacturer of oligonucleotides and the only company that has cGMP facilities in Korea. Autotelic Bio is expected to enter the clinical trial of 'ATB-301L-2', a dual-function anticancer drug combination therapy, in the first quarter of next year. Among them, a clinical sample of an oligonucleotide that inhibits TGF-β2 was produced by ST Pharm, and a commercially available product was used for the interleukin-2 (IL-2) drug. It is explained that ST Pharm is participating in this investment by highly evaluating the global business and innovativeness of Autotelic Bio's oligonucleotide anticancer drug candidate.

In addition, with Jeil Pharm, Autotelic is in progress of joint development in the US and Korea of the new hybrid drug 'ATB-101' for hypertension and diabetes treatment. In addition, a pharmaceutical company in Korea, which is preparing a cGMP raw material production facility for low-molecular compounds, is discussing a potential partnership for joint research related to the process and production of new low-molecular compounds being developed by Autotelic Bio.

Tae-Hoon Kim, CEO of Autotelic Bio, explained, “Through strategic partnerships, Autotelic Bio will focus on building a foundation to grow into a company specializing in developing global innovative new drugs based on oligonucleotides.”

On the other hand, Autotelic Bio's accumulated investments, including 8 billion won in Series A investments (Mega Investment, UTC Investment, Stonebridge Ventures, etc.) in February this year, reached about 13 billion won.

In August 2020, Yong-kwan Jeon, former head of Boryung Biopharma development headquarters, and Chang-hee Park, former project leader of Synthetic Drug Development at Hanmi Pharmaceutical Research Center, joined as vice president of clinical strategy development and MediChem department, respectively. This is accelerating the development of new innovative drugs and clinical trials of oligonucleotides.