Immunobiome, IMB001 Efficacy and Mechanism of Action Identified... "Proving Technological Capability"

Immunobiome, a microbiome-based new drug development specialist company, announced on the 26th that it has published a paper proving the efficacy and mechanism of action of its new drug candidate 'IMB001' in the international journal Nature Immunology. The paper involved collaboration between Immunobiome, Professor Sangwook Kim and Professor Jongkyung Kim of POSTECH, Professor Geunyu Shin of Seoul National University, and Professor Antonio Molinaro of Universita di Napoli.

Through this paper, Immunobiome and the research team identified the active substance and mechanism of action of the kimchi-derived lactic acid bacterium IMB001. Clarifying the active substances and mechanisms is essential for the development and commercialization of microbiome therapeutics, and this publication serves as a validation of Immunobiome’s technological capabilities.

First, they isolated the polysaccharide 'RHP (Rhamnose-rich Heterogenous Polysaccharide)', which constitutes the cell wall. Using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) analysis, they identified RHP as the key active substance exhibiting anticancer efficacy. IMB001 expresses this key active substance RHP on its surface, which induces tumor cell death.

Additionally, the study demonstrated the dual mechanism of action of IMB001. IMB001 first increases cytotoxic T cells (CD8 T cells) that secrete the inflammatory cytokine IFN-γ, thereby inducing tumor cell apoptosis. It also stimulates macrophages to express the LCN2 gene, which absorbs and stores iron ions, leading to the death of tumor cells deprived of iron ions in the tumor microenvironment.

The study applied Immunobiome’s AI-based new drug development platform, 'Avatiom'. By utilizing bioinformatics and machine learning methodologies on data from over 10,000 cancer patients and immune checkpoint inhibitor prescription cohort data, the platform selected applicable cancer types. This served as an opportunity to confirm the excellence of the Avatiom platform in selecting indications for therapeutics, a critical challenge for clinical success.

Shinhyuk Lim, CEO of Immunobiome, stated, "In this study, by applying Immunobiome’s Avatiom, we demonstrated high technological capabilities across the entire new drug development cycle, including strain selection, active substance identification, and prediction of applicable cancer types. Moving forward, we will utilize the Avatiom technology to refine the clinical design of IMB001 and continue discovering new therapeutic pipelines."

Meanwhile, Immunobiome is developing microbiome therapeutics for intractable diseases through its proprietary Avatiom platform. Avatiom is a platform technology that integrates advanced technologies such as germ-free and humanized mouse models and AI-based predictions to comprehensively evaluate candidate substances’ derivation, strain therapeutic efficacy, and mechanisms of action. In the future, the Avatiom new drug development platform technology is expected to be used not only for microbiome therapeutics but also for various therapeutic substance developments, including AI-based △personalized patient diagnosis △therapeutic candidate discovery △new drug development side effect prediction models.