[Featured Stock] Daewon Pharmaceutical, Expected to be the Second Wegovy... Obesity Prevention with Hyperlipidemia Treatment

Daewon Pharmaceutical is showing strength. It appears that the news confirming that ‘Fenofibrate,’ well-known as a treatment for hyperlipidemia, is effective against heart failure caused by obesity or diabetes is influencing the stock price.

As of 10:58 AM on the 16th, Daewon Pharmaceutical was trading at 16,030 KRW, up 1,090 KRW (7.30%) compared to the previous trading day.

Professor Changmyung Oh’s research team from the Department of Biotechnology at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) announced that they have demonstrated that fenofibrate can prevent heart failure caused by obesity and diabetes and protect the heart. The research results were published online in the international journal Cardiovascular Diabetology last September.

The research team administered fenofibrate to mice exhibiting symptoms of heart failure caused by obesity or diabetes and confirmed that cardiac fibrosis was reduced by 50% compared to the control group. Additionally, the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), an indicator of heart function, improved by 15% compared to the control group.

Next, after creating a high-fat and high-sugar environment in myocardial cells, fenofibrate was applied, confirming increased cell viability, suppression of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and reduced cell apoptosis. After fenofibrate treatment, cell viability increased by 45% under high-fat and high-sugar conditions, ROS generation was suppressed by 50%, and the cell apoptosis rate decreased significantly from 13.81% to 5.47%.

Daewon Pharmaceutical developed Tzigefenon, the world’s first tablet form of fenofibrate choline formulation. According to Daewon Pharmaceutical, Tzigefenon enhances bioavailability by adding choline salt to fenofibrate, a poorly soluble substance, enabling the drug to be released in the small intestine rather than the gastrointestinal tract due to its high hydrophilicity.

While existing formulations had to be taken after meals to improve bioavailability, Tzigefenon can be taken regardless of meals, and its formulation size is the smallest among hypertriglyceridemia treatments, which is expected to improve medication convenience, according to Daewon Pharmaceutical.

Daewon Pharmaceutical is also developing a patch-type obesity drug in collaboration with Lapas, a specialist company in microneedle patches.

It seems that buying momentum is gathering as investors anticipate the birth of a new obesity treatment following the success of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, which demonstrated about a 15% weight loss effect and sparked a ‘miracle obesity drug’ craze. Wegovy is a semaglutide-based drug, a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist. Initially, this drug was developed as Ozempic, a diabetes treatment, based on the fact that GLP-1 is secreted from the pancreas along with insulin to regulate blood sugar. However, it was later confirmed that this component also acts on the stomach and brain to suppress appetite, leading to its introduction as the obesity treatment Wegovy.