[Market Focus] Pharos iBio Surges on Clinical Trial Plan Approval Announcement

As of 9:31 a.m. on June 26, shares of Pharos iBio, a new drug development company, were trading at 6,510 won on the KOSDAQ market, up 5.34% from the previous closing price. This appears to be due to news that the company received approval from the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for the Phase 1 clinical trial plan (IND) of its global new drug for refractory solid tumors, 'PHI-501'.

After the market closed the previous day, Pharos iBio announced that it had received approval for a Phase 1 clinical trial plan (IND) to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, and preliminary clinical activity of PHI-501 in patients with advanced solid tumors harboring BRAF, KRAS, or NRAS mutations.

According to the company, PHI-501 is a new drug pipeline expected to become an innovative therapy in the global anticancer drug market. Preclinical studies have confirmed that PHI-501 overcomes 'tumor promotion in BRAF wild-type tumors', which is a major side effect of existing therapies.

PHI-501 is a dual inhibitor of pan-RAF and DDR, acting simultaneously on two signaling pathways involved in the survival and growth of cancer tumors. Pharos iBio utilizes the disease target prediction module 'DeepRECOM' of its proprietary AI drug discovery platform 'Chemiverse' to develop PHI-501 for indications such as refractory colorectal cancer, malignant melanoma, and triple-negative breast cancer, among other refractory solid tumors.

In April, Pharos iBio presented preclinical research results for PHI-501 in refractory lung cancer at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR 2025) held in Chicago, United States. The company revealed PHI-501's anticancer efficacy in overcoming the limitations of existing FDA-approved therapies in KRAS-mutant lung cancer.