Apton Secures Global Exclusive Rights to 'GPC-100' After Completing U.S. Phase 2 Trial

[Financial News] Aprogen subsidiary Apton announced on the 26th that it has secured global exclusive rights to the immune cell enhancer Burixafor (GPC-100) and combination therapies using the drug.
To secure the rights, Apton will pay 6.5 billion won to GPCRT, its contractual counterparty. It also plans to pay GPCR Therapeutics an upfront payment of 500 million won and milestone-based technology fees of up to 47.2 billion won, depending on development progress, in return for upgraded rights to the original developer of the substance.
GPC-100 is a new drug candidate that has completed a U.S. Phase 2 trial. The study, conducted at 10 institutions in the United States on patients with blood cancers, including multiple myeloma, was completed in October last year. The related results were presented orally at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) last September and were published in the international journal Annals of Hematology in February this year.
GPC-100 is a blood stem cell mobilizer that moves immune cells and hematopoietic stem cells from the bone marrow or tissues into the bloodstream. According to the company, existing mobilizers take 10 to 14 hours after administration to show an effect, whereas GPC-100, when used together with G-CSF, promotes the movement of hematopoietic stem cells and T cells into the blood within one hour.
Apton expects GPC-100 to serve as a booster that can improve the effectiveness of In vivo CAR-T, a next-generation cancer immunotherapy.
Unlike conventional CAR-T, which extracts a patient's T cells, cultures them outside the body, and then reinfuses them, In vivo CAR-T directly delivers genes into T cells inside the body. Because it can reduce the patient-specific manufacturing process, it is being developed as a next-generation technology for mass production and commercialization of CAR-T therapy.
However, a key challenge is that only a small proportion of T cells receive the genes in the body, meaning a large amount of gene delivery vectors is needed to achieve sufficient therapeutic effects. The company said that when GPC-100 is administered, the number of T cells in the blood temporarily increases by sevenfold to as much as more than tenfold within one hour, which could help expand the pool of T cells capable of accepting genes.
A company official said, "We expect GPC-100 to be used in the future as a booster drug that enhances the therapeutic efficiency of In vivo CAR-T treatments."
Meanwhile, Apton is currently negotiating after receiving technology transfer proposals from overseas In vivo CAR-T companies for combination use with GPC-100. The company expects the talks to be concluded within about three months at the latest.
[email protected] Choi Doo-sun Reporter