JLKE, Equity Investment in Dr. Noah Biotech, a New Drug Development Specialist Company

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] JLK, a domestic medical artificial intelligence (AI) specialized company, announced on the 11th that it has signed an equity investment agreement for a strategic business partnership with Dr. Noah Biotech (hereinafter Dr. Noah), a new drug development specialized company.

JLK is a publicly listed company in the domestic medical AI sector. It has the medical AI all-in-one comprehensive platform ‘AIHub’ as its foundation, along with the remote healthcare platform ‘Hello Health’ and the AI total data management platform ‘Hello Data’.

Dr. Noah is a new drug development specialized company focused on the preclinical stage of animal testing. Founded in 2017 by CEO Ji-hyun Lee, a Ph.D. from Seoul National University, it has attracted approximately 6 billion KRW in investments from well-known domestic VCs such as KB Investment and POSCO Technology Investment within three years of its establishment. Dr. Noah is conducting business by signing memorandums of understanding for technical cooperation with various domestic and international companies including CMG Pharm, Huons, and Kainos Med.

JLK recently announced the launch of ‘Hello Gene,’ a new drug development specialized platform utilizing AI and big data. The intention is to apply the know-how and technological capabilities accumulated in the medical AI diagnostic field to the new drug development sector. This contract with Dr. Noah, which possesses specialized know-how in new drug development, is expected to create tremendous synergy through the use of the Hello Gene platform.

Kim Dong-min, CEO of JLK, stated, “We expect to actively engage in new drug development based on our unique AI technology, and anticipate that the use of artificial intelligence and big data will drastically reduce the cost and duration of new drug development. We are strategically considering not only strategic collaborations and equity investments with domestic and international pharmaceutical companies and genome developers but also the establishment of a subsidiary tentatively named JLK BIO.”