Prestige Bio to complete Korea's largest antibody drug R&D facility

Prestige Biopharma Group, a Singapore-based biopharmaceutical company, is building Korea’s largest antibody drug R&D facility in Busan.

Prestige Biopharma CEO Park So-yeon speaks during a press conference held on Tuesday during the CPHI Worldwide 2023 in Barcelona, with an image of the company's upcoming R&D center displayed on screen. [PRESTIGE BIOPHARMA]

BARCELONA, Spain — Prestige Biopharma Group, a Singapore-based biopharmaceutical company, is building Korea’s largest antibody drug R&D facility in Busan.

The facility, named Innovative Discovery Center (IDC), is slated for completion in the first half of next year. As most large-scale new drug R&D facilities in Korea are focusing on synthetic drugs, the 334,481-square-foot IDC is the largest single building dedicated to new drug development in biopharmaceuticals, according to the company.

“This year marks the year in which we have established a full value chain of an antibody-drug supply chain,” Park So-yeon, Prestige Biopharma CEO, said during a press conference held on Tuesday at Fira Barcelona, where the CPHI Worldwide 2023 is taking place.

The group consists of Kospi-listed anti-cancer drug developer Prestige Biopharma, and Kosdaq-listed contract bio-manufacturer Prestige Biologics. Prestige Biopharma is also a member of the U.S.-led Cancer Moonshot project.

Prestige Biopharma is currently developing a diagnosis kit and imaging diagnostic technology to detect Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Upregulated Factor (PAUF), a pancreatic cancer overexpression protein discovered by the company, in the blood of a patient for early diagnosis.

“Most pancreatic cancer patients don't have any symptoms and it’s very hard to detect as well, so if you're diagnosed at stage 4, you have about six months left at that point,” Park said.

“So if you really want to save people with pancreatic cancer, you have to discover it from the early stage, but we didn’t have that tool until now.”

The company plans to release the cancer diagnostic kit in 2024.

Prestige Biopharma currently has 11 drug candidates including PBP1510, pancreatic cancer antibody drug candidate based on PAUF and CTHRC1 target protein.

Moreover, the company signed sales deals with four partners for its HD201 — the company’s biosimilar of the breast cancer treatment Herceptin — which is now heading to market release.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]