[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] NKMAX, a company specializing in immune cell therapy, announced on the 30th that all three abstracts submitted to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) have been accepted and are scheduled for presentation.
Known as the Olympics of the oncology field, the ASCO Annual Meeting is a prestigious global academic conference in oncology attended by over 40,000 participants from 76 countries each year, held annually in Chicago, USA. This year, due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), offline events such as symposiums will not be held, and the conference will be conducted online (Virtual conference).
ASCO is a representative international academic conference where pharmaceutical companies showcase their technologies to academia and industry. Many companies that present their technologies at this conference aim for pharmaceutical technology licensing (License Out) or stock price increases. For example, the US biotech company Kite Pharma saw its stock price rise from $73 to $180 after presenting an abstract at ASCO in May 2017, and was later acquired by Gilead Sciences for a corporate value of 12 trillion KRW. Similarly, LOXO Oncology Inc., which presented an abstract at ASCO in May 2018, saw its stock price increase from $100 to $180 before being acquired by Eli Lilly the following year for a corporate value of 8 trillion KRW.
The three accepted NKMAX abstracts are ▲Korean clinical Phase 1/2a study targeting non-small cell lung cancer ▲US clinical Phase 1 study targeting solid tumors ▲Study on measuring NK cell activity as a biomarker.
Among these, the Korean clinical-related abstract will be presented both orally and as a poster, while the other two abstracts will be posted as posters on the ASCO website.
The abstracts will be pre-released on the ASCO website on May 13, and the oral presentations will be conducted online from May 29 to June 2, the event dates.
Professor Choi Chang-min, the head of the Korean clinical trial, stated, "NK cells are immune cells that neutralize cancer at the forefront and have been highly regarded as the most important guardians within our body." He added, "This time, to overcome the limitations of existing immune checkpoint inhibitors, we will present the safety and efficacy of the autologous cell therapy SuperNK, cultured and expanded with high purity, in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors at ASCO, where global authorities gather." He continued, "Based on this research, we will proceed with subsequent clinical trials and strive to have NK cell therapy recognized as a new cancer treatment technology to improve the survival rates of cancer patients."
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