SK Plasma "Leap to a Rare Intractable Disease Treatment Company" (Comprehensive)

Expansion of Specialized Blood Products Sector
1.1 Trillion KRW Investment Secured Last Year
Focus on Commercialization R&D with Externally Developed New Drug Candidates
Intensive Development of Advanced Anticancer Cell Therapy 'CAR-T'

Yunho Kim, CEO of SK Plasma

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jeong] SK Plasma, a specialist company in blood products, is set to actively expand and reorganize its business into the rare and intractable disease sector. The company plans to enter the rare and intractable disease treatment market, restructuring its business portfolio centered on blood products and creating new growth engines in the bio sector. Notably, the first investment target for advancing into the rare and intractable disease field has been chosen as the cutting-edge anticancer cell therapy ‘CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell)’.

◆New R&D Strategy ‘NRDO’= SK Plasma announced on the 13th that it will accelerate the rare and intractable disease business investment project, which it has been conducting with Tium Bio and Korea Investment Partners since last year.

Through a paid-in capital increase last year, SK Plasma attracted 110 billion KRW in investment from SK Discovery, Tium Bio, and Korea Investment Partners. Using these funds, it has been operating an NRDO (No Research Development Only) organization to secure new drug pipelines in the rare and intractable disease field. Unlike traditional pharmaceutical R&D activities where the company conducts the entire drug development process from basic research and candidate substance discovery (R phase) to clinical development (D phase), NRDO is a new R&D strategy that focuses on commercialization research and development by introducing drug candidates discovered and developed externally.

Kim Yoon-ho, CEO of SK Plasma, stated, "We will continuously discover new drug candidates through the NRDO-centered R&D strategy and become a specialized pharmaceutical company in the rare and intractable disease field."

Immediately after attracting investment, SK Plasma established a dedicated organization for NRDO promotion and a research and development committee involving strategic investors. They have been reviewing new drug candidates in the rare and intractable disease field being developed by domestic and international bio ventures. SK Plasma selected the CAR-T therapy being developed by CureCell as its first NRDO project. Recently, SK Plasma participated as a strategic investor (SI) in CureCell’s pre-IPO investment round. Going forward, SK Plasma and CureCell will jointly promote the domestic and international commercialization of the CAR-T therapy.

◆Focused Development of CAR-T Therapy= CAR-T therapy is an advanced anticancer cell therapy that involves isolating a patient’s immune cells, genetically modifying them, mass culturing, and then re-administering them to the patient. Since anticancer immunotherapy activates the patient’s immune function to treat cancer, it is known to have relatively fewer side effects. In particular, CAR-T therapy has shown higher therapeutic effects than previous treatments and is called the ‘dream anticancer drug.’ The two companies plan to expand their collaboration from autologous therapies using the patient’s own immune cells targeting hematologic cancers to allogeneic therapies based on donor or other individuals’ cells and therapies targeting solid tumors, developing next-level CAR-T technologies.

An SK Plasma official said, "The CAR-T therapy being developed by CureCell is an innovative new drug that enables recovery and cure for cancer patients who were untreatable with existing technologies. Through close cooperation with CureCell, we will promote the successful development and commercialization of CAR-T therapy and nurture it as SK Plasma’s core bio new drug pipeline."

SK Plasma’s move to create new growth engines was mainly driven by the declining profitability of its blood product-centered business. Although SK Plasma achieved sales of 107.1 billion KRW in 2020, it recorded an operating loss of 5.4 billion KRW. Since blood products, which are essential national medicines, account for more than 90% of SK Plasma’s sales, discovering new revenue sources is an urgent matter.