PeopleBio, 10x Price Competitiveness Over US Competitors... World's First Commercialization with 100% Sensitivity

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] PeopleBio is showing strong performance. Amid growing interest in newly listed companies, it is attracting buy orders as it is known to have technological prowess and price competitiveness. With the domestic diagnostic companies' technology gaining recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic, expectations are rising that PeopleBio will dominate the early diagnosis market for Alzheimer's disease.

As of 10:05 AM on the 5th, PeopleBio is trading at 64,300 KRW, up 16.7% from the previous day.

PeopleBio is a developer of blood diagnostic technology for degenerative brain diseases. It has developed an early diagnostic product for Alzheimer's disease. This is a blood diagnostic kit that detects beta-amyloid aggregation. In 2018, it received the world's first approval from the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for an Alzheimer's auxiliary diagnostic kit.

Researcher Hyemin Heo from Kiwoom Securities explained, "Amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) scans are used to diagnose Alzheimer's," adding, "In Korea, the cost is 1.2 to 1.8 million KRW, and overseas it is 4,000 to 5,000 USD." She continued, "There is also a risk of radiation exposure," and said, "PeopleBio's product costs one-tenth of that."

The number of tests conducted with PeopleBio's Alzheimer's product has accumulated to about 20,000 cases, and it is expected that sufficient data will be secured by 2022-2023 to enable insurance reimbursement. The company aims to reach the break-even point this year and targets 1.2 to 1.5 million tests domestically next year. Having obtained European certification in November last year, it anticipates establishing a foothold in the domestic market and expanding into Southeast Asia and Europe.

The early blood diagnostic market for Alzheimer's has also opened in the United States. On October 29th, a competitor, C2N, launched a blood diagnostic product that predicts amyloid plaque deposition in the brain. Testing 686 patients aged 60 and over, the sensitivity (positive detection rate) was 92%, and specificity (negative detection rate) was 76%. The test cost was 1,250 USD.

PeopleBio tested 52 domestic patients, achieving a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 92.3%. Although the number of patients was smaller compared to C2N, researcher Heo judged the results to be excellent.

Researcher Heo said, "In addition to Alzheimer's, the approval and launch of Parkinson's diagnostic products in Korea are expected in 2021-2022, providing momentum for new product releases," and predicted, "Key points to watch will be C2N's market penetration speed in the U.S., insurance reimbursement application for Alzheimer's products domestically, expansion of launch countries, and the release of Parkinson's products."