'Gwangju TP Resident Company' Anigen, Leaps to Global Peptide Material Technology Firm

Jaeil Kim, CEO of Anigen

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Anigen, a tenant company of Gwangju Technopark and a KOSDAQ-listed company, announced on the 28th that it has been finally selected for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's first new biohealth R&D project of 2022, titled ‘Development of a Novel Dual-Acting Peptide Drug Material for Diabetes and Obesity Treatment and Development of a Process Analysis Platform for GMP Production.’

This project is led by Anigen, with participation from Gwangju Technopark and the Korea Biohealth Technology Research Association, and will receive full government funding of 4.5 billion KRW over four years until 2025 to carry out the task of ‘Development of a Novel Dual-Acting Peptide Drug Material for Diabetes and Obesity Treatment and Development of a Process Analysis Platform for GMP Production.’

In particular, this project aims to develop core dual-acting (Dual agonist) peptide materials and mass production technologies that simultaneously treat diabetes and obesity, which are representative health management issues that have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. The project was jointly planned over two years starting last year by Gwangju City, Anigen Co., Ltd., Gwangju Technopark, and the Korea Biohealth Technology Research Association, and was finally selected.

Anigen Co., Ltd., a leading regional bio-material specialist company listed on KOSDAQ in 2010, has its headquarters and research institute at Gwangju Technopark and GIST, and has established a peptide research and manufacturing base with an annual capacity of 10,000g in Jangseong, Jeonnam, and Osong, Chungbuk. Recently, it has been actively conducting research and development utilizing peptides, which are attracting attention as core materials for new drugs and vaccines.

Since 2021, Gwangju City and Technopark have been promoting plans related to the ‘Peptide Production Cluster’ to secure mass production in response to the rapidly increasing demand for high-purity peptides, which are being re-evaluated as raw materials for intractable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, infectious disease vaccines, functional cosmetics, and medical foods. Through the execution of this project, once the core material manufacturing technology for diabetes and obesity treatment, representative chronic diseases of the modern aging society, is completed, new drugs can be developed based on this, and continuous growth of the regional medical industry and synergy creation in upstream and downstream industries are expected.

Director Kim Sun-min stated, “As the medical industry market expands after COVID-19, the importance of protecting our citizens through innovative new drug development is increasing,” adding, “We will do our best to develop innovative treatment technologies using peptides that can treat diabetes and obesity, contributing to the protection of public health and improvement of quality of life, and to make Gwangju a turning point for advancing the national medical industry beyond the regional level.”