AZothBio, Autotelic Bio to conclude contract for joint development of immune anticancer drugs

On September 7, AZothBio (CEO Shin Jae-min) and Autotelic Bio (CEO Kim Tae-hoon) agreed to jointly develop an immune anticancer drug. It is a follow-up contract signed about five months after the contract for joint development of targeted cancer drugs in April.

The immune anticancer drug which they are to develop is not out on the market yet, and a few global companies are undergoing clinical trials. The two companies believe that they can implement a fast follower strategy using AZothBio’s AI platform and Autotelic Bio’s research know-how. This joint development project is a structure in which both companies’ technology and resources are jointly invested and equal rights are divided. As a way to increase the work efficiency of the development of anticancer drugs that the two companies are working on, a follow-up contract was signed.

AZothBio is a company specializing in new drug development AI platforms, and is working with new drug development companies by establishing an integrated platform that enables the data platform and AI model to operate efficiently. The project started with Autotelic Bio in April, and they have completed the development of a target-specific selection model (AI model) and is conducting research on the efficacy of new substances. Recently, they are discussing the expansion of their own AI new drug discovery platform to the platform of Rescale, a high-performance cloud computing company. Rescale had also been selected as one of the Tech Against Covid program to support the fight against COVID-19, receiving free support of computing resources to build a library of small molecule-based COVID treatment drugs.

Autotelic Bio is a research and development company that focuses on the development of innovative anticancer drugs. It is developing a variety of new immune and targeted anticancer drug pipelines, and its main research and development items are ATB-301, immune target double-function anticancer drug, and ATB-310, target anticancer drug. From October 2019 to February 2020, they attracted series A investment worth eight billion won from Mega Investment, UTC Investment, Stone Bridge Ventures, Ajoupharm, and Korea Credit Guarantee Fund. Recently, they have recruited Jeon Yong-kwan, formerly the head of development division of Boryung Biopharma as the clinical strategy development vice president, and Park Chang-hee, formerly the synthetic drug development project leader at Hanmi Pharmaceutical Research Lab as the Medicam Director.

Autotelic Bio R&D center is based in Pangyo Technovalley, Pangyo Technovalley is the Asia Tech Hub where more than 1,200 companies in IT, CT, and BT sectors with innovative products and technologies are gathered. Located just south of the Seoul metropolitan area, easy transportation access and infrastructure provides the best environment for Korean companies to conduct businesses.

Various high-tech companies are located here, with more than 64 thousand full-time workers with a vast majority in their 20s and 30s. By industries, companies in the high-tech industry are made up of IT companies, content technology companies, biotechnology companies, and nanotechnology companies.

With the support from innovative companies with global capabilities like Kakao, NHN Entertainment, AhnLab, Krafton, NCSOFT, Nexon, and Hancom at hand, companies in Pangyo Technovalley made over 100 trillion in revenue this year. A 20 percent increase from last year, it is expected to become one of the best IT clusters in Korea in near future, along with advanced technology research institutes like Advanced Institute of Convergence Technology, KAIST, ETRI, and KETI working together to develop the relevant technologies further./.