Yunovia accelerates development of obesity, diabetes treatments

Yunovia Co. CI

Yunovia Co., a biotech subsidiary of Ildong Pharmaceutical Co., is expected to move on to the next phase of clinical trials to verify the safety of its new drug candidate aimed at treating diabetes and obesity.

Ildong Pharmaceutical said on Monday that Yunovia is moving forward with a multiple ascending dose (MAD) study, which is the follow-up phase to the Phase 1 clinical trial for its drug candidate, ID110521156.

Yunovia received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety during the previous week for its clinical trial plan for the MAD study, which will evaluate ID110521156’s safety, tolerability, and pharmacodynamics properties. The company has already demonstrated the efficacy of the drug candidate in insulin secretion and blood glucose control animal tests, as well as its higher level of safety compared to similar competitive drugs.

The recently completed Phase 1 single ascending dose trial also yielded positive results.

ID110521156 is a GLP-1 receptor agonist that mimics the role of the GLP-1 hormone, which is involved in insulin synthesis and secretion, blood glucose reduction, gastrointestinal motility control and appetite suppression.

The candidate is an oral new drug based on low-molecular-weight compounds, which is viewed as more productive and convenient compared to existing peptide injection treatments.

“ID110521156 is the only synthetic GLP-1 receptor agonist currently in domestic clinical stages,” a company official said. “We are currently among the leaders in terms of development progress in the global market.”