GI Cell, World's First Successful 200ℓ NK Cell Cultivation

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] GI Cell has succeeded in culturing 200ℓ of NK (natural killer) cells. Culturing 200ℓ is a scale that has never been officially disclosed before.

GI Cell, a company developing immune cell therapies, announced on the 16th that it has cultured 200ℓ of NK cell therapy for the first time in the world. According to the company, no domestic or international NK cell therapy companies have officially announced success in culturing 200ℓ following the 50ℓ culture.

NK cells are a type of white blood cell responsible for innate immunity. They immediately attack cells infected by viruses or bacteria, as well as cancer cells. Despite their strong immune power, they do not cause immune rejection reactions to transplanted NK cells from others, which is why they are evaluated as having excellent safety. This is the reason why various companies at home and abroad are making every effort to develop NK cell therapies in an off-the-shelf form.

GI Cell, which is developing off-the-shelf NK cell therapies, succeeded in culturing 200ℓ following the success of culturing 50ℓ of NK cells in October 2020. This was made possible by utilizing the platform technology called ‘NK Expander,’ which enables mass culturing without cell exhaustion by using auxiliary proteins. Additionally, the ‘feeder-cell free’ culturing system using the NK Expander platform allows mass culturing without adding cancer-derived feeder cells during the culturing process, simplifying the process and maximizing safety. GI Cell plans to start clinical trials for the NK cell therapy 'T.O.P. NK' applying the NK Expander platform technology in the second half of this year.

Jang Myung-ho, Chairman of GI Innovation, said, "With GI Cell’s success in mass culturing NK cells, the combination therapy with GI Innovation’s main immune anticancer drug 'GI-101' has become visible," and added, "We will do our best to start combination clinical trials in the first half of next year."

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