Korea eyes novel immuno-oncology development for growth

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The South Korean government is joining forces with the academia and industry to develop novel immunotherapy for cancer patients.

According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on Tuesday, 62 out of 259 clinical trials for cancer treatment, or 24 percent, involved immunotherapy, up from 20 percent in the previous year.

Cancer treatments are classified into three generations.

The first and second are known as chemotherapy and targeted therapy. Immunotherapy is the third and last therapy. Though such classification is based on a chronicle order, not levels of efficacy, the first and second generations of cancer drugs have their own undesirable effects.

While chemotherapy can harm normal cells, targeted therapy is designed to treat only certain types of cancer, with a high risk of drug resistance.

The third-generation immunotherapy, on the other hand, is a more effective and safer cancer treatment that works on a body’s immune system.

The therapy can work without any targets by blocking cancer cells from attacking the immune system or helping the immune system recognize and attack tumor cells.

The different types of immunotherapy include immune checkpoint inhibitors, immune cell therapy, therapeutic antibody, and anticancer vaccine.

Samjin Pharm Co. has been chosen to participate in a government project led by the Ministry of Science and ICT, which aims to promote the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in developing an innovative anticancer drug.

The Korean pharmaceutical company has been developing novel immunotherapy in collaboration with inCerebro, a platform provider that designs and develops new drugs using molecular modeling and AI technology.

Genome & Company, a Korean clinical-stage biotech firm, said that its novel immune checkpoint inhibitor candidate GENA-119 has been selected as an experimental lead compound by the Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF).

Choi Jung Kyoon, professor of bio and brain engineering at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) [Photo provided by Ministry of Science and ICT]

Choi Jung Kyoon, professor of bio and brain engineering at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), has been honored with the Science and Technology Award of the Month.

The award, granted by the Science Ministry and the National Research Foundation of Korea, recognized his contributions to the development and commercialization of next-generation immune targets with the use of AI.

“My research team tapped AI for the discovery of solid tumor cells that can be targeted by immunotherapeutic drugs,” Choi said in a phone interview with Yonhap News Agency. “To make immune cells target specific tumors, AI has been adopted in the development.”

As a low response rate has been cited as a limitation of immunotherapy, some pharmaceutical companies have adopted drug development pipelines in which co-administration with existing available therapies is used to enhance the overall response rate.

In a Phase-3 clinical study of patients with non-small cell lung cancer for approval of immunotherapeutic camrelizumab in combination with chemotherapy (carboplatin and paclitaxel), camrelizumab plus chemotherapy exhibited a 63 percent lower risk of progress than chemotherapy alone, according to Crystal Genomics Inc. and its partner Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Company Limited.

At the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2023, Genexine Inc., a Korean pharmaceutical, announced the findings of a Phase-2 clinical trial that compares the efficacy of triple administration of its cervical therapeutic DNA vaccine GX 188E, lymphopenia immuno-oncology candidate GX-I7, and Keytruda for patients with head and neck cancer, adding that the therapy improved the complete response rate to 36 percent.