Green Cross-Noveltinovility, Joint R&D Collaboration for Treatment of Vision-Threatening Eye Diseases

GC Green Cross announced on the 28th that it signed a contract on the 25th at its headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, with Novelty Nobility, a company specializing in antibody drug development, for joint research and development (R&D) of a treatment for geographic atrophy (GA).

Jae-wook Jeong, Head of R&D at GC Green Cross (left), and Sang-gyu Park, CEO of Novelty Nobility, are posing together at the joint research and development contract signing ceremony.
[Photo by GC Green Cross]

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in the elderly, is broadly classified into dry and wet types. GA is an advanced form of dry AMD. GA mainly occurs in the late stages of AMD, damaging retinal tissue and causing blindness, with over 1.5 million patients reported in the United States alone.

Although the first GA treatment was launched in the United States last year, it only showed limited effects by partially slowing the progression of GA and could not restore already diminished vision. Additionally, side effects such as the development of wet AMD or inflammation were reported in a significant number of patients during drug administration. Therefore, there remains an unmet market demand for treatments with improved efficacy and safety in GA therapy.

Through this collaboration, both companies plan to establish a partnership covering all development stages from candidate discovery for antibody-based protein therapeutics to preclinical, clinical, and commercialization phases. As the first step of the joint research, they will select target proteins that are key pathological factors of GA and discover therapeutic candidates that inhibit these targets to conduct proof-of-concept studies.

Park Sang-kyu, CEO of Novelty Nobility, said, “Our company has been developing next-generation wet AMD treatments using antibodies developed in-house over many years. We aim to expand this area to GA through this opportunity,” adding, “We will do our best to ensure that the research results so far can be realized as innovative treatments through cooperation with Green Cross.”

Jung Jae-wook, head of R&D at GC Green Cross, stated, “We expect that Novelty Nobility’s experience in developing antibody-based retinal disease treatments and our protein therapeutic technology will create synergy through this collaboration,” and added, “Through open innovation, we will actively expand the development of treatments for diseases beyond our specialized fields of blood products and rare diseases.”