Celltrion Signs Agreement with KobioLab to License Candidate Substances for Intestinal Disease Treatments

Three Microbiome New Drug Candidates Licensed

Contract Valued Up to 205.2 Billion Won... Outcome of Joint Research

"Addressing Unmet Medical Needs in Intestinal Diseases"

On March 25, Celltrion signed a licensing-in agreement for three candidate substances developed by KobioLab for the treatment of intestinal diseases.

Celltrion announced that on this day, at the Celltrion Global Life Sciences Research Center in Songdo, Incheon, it signed an agreement to secure exclusive clinical development and commercialization rights for three microbiome new drug candidate substances developed by KobioLab: 'KC84', 'KBL382', and 'KBL385'. The event was attended by Seojin Seok, CEO of Celltrion's Management and Business Division, and Kwangpyo Ko, CEO of KobioLab.

On the 25th, at the Celltrion Global Biopharmaceutical Research Center in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, Jinsuk Seo, CEO of Celltrion's Business Division (right), and Kwangpyo Go, CEO of Kobaiolab, signed a licensing agreement and took a commemorative photo. Celltrion

Celltrion will pay a signing fee of 1 billion won, with additional milestone payments of up to 7.2 billion won for development stages and up to 13 billion won for approval stages, distributed according to each milestone. If the candidate substances are successfully commercialized and reach a certain level of net sales, Celltrion will pay up to 184 billion won in commercialization royalties. The maximum total contract size is 205.2 billion won. These candidate substances are the result of joint research between Celltrion and KobioLab conducted since 2022, and with this agreement, development will now be fully accelerated.

Based on this, Celltrion plans to pursue development for a variety of intestinal disease indications, including diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D). In particular, microbiome therapeutics are expected to offer relatively high safety due to their basis in human microorganisms. As a result, Celltrion will adopt a strategy focused on efficacy verification in the early stages of clinical trials. The company plans to enter proof-of-concept (PoC) testing within the year to rapidly verify efficacy compared to phase 1 clinical trials.

Celltrion expects that the newly introduced candidate substances will address unmet medical needs in the IBS-D field. Current IBS-D treatments are limited to symptom relief, leaving high demand for fundamental therapies. Furthermore, the microbiome platform is still an early-stage market with few commercialized therapies, making it one of the next-generation therapeutic areas expected to produce blockbuster new drugs in the future.

A Celltrion official stated, "Through innovative new drug development based on the microbiome, we aim to secure next-generation treatment options and contribute to addressing unmet medical needs in the field of intestinal diseases. We will continue to expand our pipeline, centering on both new drugs and biosimilars, to further strengthen our position as a comprehensive global biotechnology company in the market."

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