Dongkook Pharmaceutical and Epil Biosciences Sign Joint Research Agreement for Promising New Drug Development

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] Dongkook Pharmaceutical announced on the 13th that it has signed a business agreement with Epil BioScience to jointly pursue research on new drug development projects.

Through this agreement, both companies aim to develop promising new drugs in areas of mutual interest. In particular, they expect to create synergy in joint research for new drug development, including non-clinical efficacy tests using the 'cholesterol metabolism inhibitor library,' drug delivery systems (DDS), product commercialization, approval, and marketing.

The two companies plan to form a joint committee to collaborate on the overall process related to new drug development and commercialization, including the discovery and derivation of candidate substances, securing patents and rights, and license-out (technology export). Their goal is to derive one or more non-clinical candidate substances by the end of this year and to conduct full-scale non-clinical research for clinical trials next year.

Lee Gye-wan, head of Dongkook Pharmaceutical’s research institute, said, "Epil BioScience is a promising company that not only possesses an excellent R&D pipeline but also conducts various joint research projects with leading universities in the United States. We plan to create synergy and achieve results by combining Dongkook Pharmaceutical’s drug development, production capabilities, and DDS platform technology."

Kim Jeong-hoon, CEO of Epil BioScience, said, "We have high expectations for cooperating with Dongkook Pharmaceutical, which has excellent new drug development platform technology and capabilities. Based on the expertise of both companies, we will strive to successfully develop an outstanding new drug pipeline."

Epil BioScience is a new drug development company with pipelines including treatments for rare severe obesity diseases such as Prader-Willi Syndrome, drug-resistant prostate cancer therapies, and degenerative brain diseases like dementia, by regulating lipid metabolism homeostasis in various cells such as brain nerve cells, cancer cells, and fat cells.