Adel Wins Technology Export Award at the 27th Korea New Drug Development Awards

Adel, a company developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, announced on the 26th that it will receive the Technology Export Award in the technology export category at the 27th Korea New Drug Development Awards (KNDA) ceremony.

The Korea New Drug Development Awards were established to promote the domestic biohealth industry and to encourage new drug research and development. It is a prestigious award hosted by the Korea Drug Development Research Association and sponsored by government ministries.

This award recognizes the technological value of Adel’s Alzheimer’s treatment candidate, ADEL-Y01, as well as the achievement of a large-scale technology transfer deal with the global pharmaceutical company Sanofi.

In December last year, Adel signed a license agreement with the global pharmaceutical company Sanofi to transfer the worldwide exclusive rights for the development and commercialization of ADEL-Y01. The total deal value is up to 1.04 billion dollars (approximately 1.53 trillion won), of which 80 million dollars (about 118 billion won) is an upfront payment with no repayment obligation. This is regarded as a significant technology export achievement by a domestic bio venture at the Phase 1 clinical trial stage.

Adel has been developing a treatment by focusing on acetylation modification of tau protein, a key factor in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. ADEL-Y01 is designed to selectively target modified tau (acK280), while not affecting tau proteins that perform normal functions, thereby reducing the potential risk of side effects caused by impairment of tau function.

In a recently completed single ascending dose (SAD) Phase 1 clinical trial in 40 adult participants, the safety of the drug was confirmed. In this trial, no serious adverse events (SAEs) or treatment discontinuations occurred even with high-dose intravenous administration of up to 100 mg/kg, and dose-proportional pharmacokinetic (PK) characteristics were observed.

Adel CEO Yoon Seungyong said, "We will not rest on this achievement and will use the secured capital to drive the development of follow-up pipelines, taking a leap forward as a global bio company leading the conquest of intractable brain diseases."