MDmune Signs Technology Licensing Agreement with US-based Caravan Biologics

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] MDimmune has signed a technology export contract with the U.S. biotech company Caravan Biologics for the development of CAR-NK cell-based anticancer drugs.

On the 16th, MDimmune stated, "This contract is MDimmune's third license-out agreement and the first overseas technology export case by a domestic exosome company."

Through this contract, MDimmune will apply its core patented technology to Caravan's research and development stage and receive license-out contract fees and research and development funds from Caravan. MDimmune explained that it expects this research-stage license-out contract to lead to a large-scale commercialization license deal extending to clinical development in the future.

MDimmune is developing the next-generation drug delivery system BioDrone platform based on cell-derived vesicles (CDV) produced using its core patented cell extrusion technology. CDV has advantages such as high production yield and the ability to utilize various source cells while possessing characteristics similar to naturally secreted exosomes.

Caravan, established in the U.S. in 2020, is a biotech venture that possesses technology for developing mini-CAR and mini-VAN nano vesicles derived from allogeneic induced pluripotent stem cells to overcome the limitations of CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies.

The two companies stated that their research collaboration aims to develop a new therapeutic platform that overcomes the limitations of existing cell-based anticancer therapies such as CAR-T and CAR-NK. While existing CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies show excellent efficacy against hematologic cancers, their effectiveness against various solid tumors is known to be limited.

Seungwook Oh, CSO of MDimmune, said, "We are pleased to collaborate with Caravan, which has cutting-edge mini-CAR-NK technology," and added, "We expect this to be an opportunity to demonstrate that MDimmune's BioDrone platform can significantly improve the efficacy of existing CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies."

Thomas Malcolm, CSO of Caravan, said, "Based on the results obtained through this research collaboration, we plan to expand the mini-CAR-NK CDV program focused on treating numerous solid tumors, including liver cancer."

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