Y-Biologics has laid the groundwork to speed up the development of new human antibody drugs. Young Woo Park, CEO of Y-Biologics, announced that the company has received an investment of KRW 5 billion in common stock. Intervest, which participated in the second round of funding made an additional investment of KRW 3 billion, while Mirae Asset Daewoo decided to additionally invest KRW 2 billion for a total of KRW 5 billion.

 

It has been seven months since the company raised KRW 10 billion from seven institutions in the second round of funding in the beginning of this year. As a result, Y-Biologics has received a total of KRW 16 billion over three rounds of funding. Investors in the second round acquired redeemable convertible preferred stock (RCPS), while those in the third round received common stock.

 

This past October, Y-Biologics garnered much attention for discovering PD-1 and PD-L1 human antibodies after just 6 months of research and licensing them to Ahn-gook Pharm and Green Cross MOGAM Institute for Biomedical Research. Based on its bispecific antibody platform technology, the human antibody R&D biotech company signed a contract with CJ Healthcare this past May to conduct joint global research on three bispecific antibodies.

 

“We are actively conducting joint research in collaboration with bio startups, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals in Korea,” said Bum Chan Park, Vice President of Y-Biologics, who then explained that “the scope of the research is not limited to antibodies, as we are capable of conducting joint research on CAR-T and CAR-NK, which are cell therapy agents requiring specificity.”

 

Y-Biologics is actively conducting R&D to establish a “Better PD-1, PD-L1 franchise” with superior efficacy than the existing agents, based on bispecific antibodies that can recognize two antigens at the same time. Efforts are also being made to discover less well-known immune checkpoint inhibitors.

 

CEO Park said, “With plans for an IPO in 2019, we will maximize our company’s value until then. [...] We are actively conducting joint research, while considering licensing out multiple technologies.” He also promised to “make the necessary preparations for the key pipelines of Y-Biologics to enter the development phase.”

 

By Sung Min Kim, sungmin.kim@bios.co.kr