Newly Listed SCM Life Science for COVID-19 Treatment Development, Maximizing Efficacy of Stem Cells and Immune Cells

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] SCM Lifescience, a company specializing in cell therapy development, is soaring on its first day of listing on the KOSDAQ market.

At 9:26 a.m. on the 17th, SCM Lifescience was trading at 32,000 KRW, up 8.47% from the opening price.

SCM Lifescience started trading at 29,500 KRW, 73.5% higher than the public offering price of 17,000 KRW.

Lee Byung-geon, CEO of SCM Lifescience, said at a pre-listing press conference, "We will strengthen our core research and development competitiveness and accelerate the clinical trials and commercialization of our main pipelines."

Founded in 2014, SCM Lifescience deals with next-generation high-purity stem cell therapies based on the layer separation culture method, dendritic cells, and allogeneic CAR-CIK-CD19 immune anticancer agents (immune cell therapies). In particular, the layer separation culture method is evaluated as a technology that can separate and culture high-purity stem cells compared to existing methods, enabling the development of relatively superior efficacy therapies.

The main pipelines consist of stem cell therapies for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), acute pancreatitis, atopic dermatitis, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), liver cirrhosis, type 1 diabetes, and immune anticancer agents such as the metastatic renal cancer treatment 'CMN-001' and acute lymphoblastic leukemia treatment 'CAR-CIK-CD19.' The new drug for severe acute pancreatitis is being developed as the world's first stem cell therapy. Although not a stem cell component, 'SB26 (TAK-671, fusion protein),' jointly developed by Takeda Pharmaceutical and Samsung Bioepis, is currently in phase 1 clinical trials and is considered a competing drug.

Development of treatments for COVID-19 and sepsis, including acute respiratory distress syndrome, is also underway. Based on the systemic inflammatory response suppression mechanism of the frozen stem cell therapy 'SCM-AGH,' currently in clinical trials, SCM Lifescience plans to apply for an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to develop a treatment that effectively controls the 'cytokine storm,' one of the major causes of death from COVID-19.

Lee Dong-geon, a researcher at Shinhan Financial Investment, said, "Currently, there are seven stem cell therapy pipelines and two immune cell therapy pipelines," and introduced, "We are developing customized therapies that maximize therapeutic efficacy through the layer separation culture method, a high-purity mesenchymal stem cell separation technology developed in-house."

He added, "The chronic graft-versus-host disease treatment, currently in phase 2 clinical trials in Korea, is expected to receive conditional approval in 2023 through orphan drug designation," and predicted, "the CDMO business using cGMP facilities acquired through mergers and acquisitions is also being actively promoted, and related performance contributions are expected to begin in earnest."

Park Jong-sun, a researcher at Eugene Investment & Securities, analyzed, "They have experience in global phase 3 clinical trials of cell therapies based on cGMP," and said, "There is a synergy effect in cell therapy development progress, and it is positive as it is planned to expand into the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.