By Spinning out Ion Channel Drug Development Platform
Daewoong Pharmaceutical has established iN Therapeutics, a new company specializing in new drug development. The move is intended to secure R&D flexibility and speed up commercialization of its new drug pipelines.
The company spun out its ion channel new drug development platform and promising pipelines to launch the new subsidiary.
Daewoong Pharmaceutical transferred, in addition to the ion channel drug development platform, Nav1.7 nonnarcotic painkiller, hearing loss treatments and brain disease treatments to iN Therapeutics.
The new company boasts world-class ion channel evaluation platform and development know-how, which was obtained through the development of new ion channel drugs for more than a decade.
Daewoong has sharpened the competitive edge of its ion channel platform technology by overcoming the problem of high-level evaluation, which is known as a limit of the approach. It has developed Nav1.7 non-narcotic painkiller (DWP17061), a lead pipeline, using the platform. The painkiller is a first-in-class medicine candidate and is highly likely to become a global innovative new drug.
Daewoong Pharmaceutical has submitted a phase one investigational new drug application (IND) in Australia. It plans to start administering the drug to healthy people within this year and wrap up the test in the first half of next year. The painkiller has shown excellent results compared to competing substances in a preclinical trial and proved its excellent efficacy compared to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), a representative painkiller for osteoarthritis.
Meanwhile, iN Therapeutics will wrap up Series A investment in the second half of 2020 for the clinical trials of Nav1.7 non-narcotic painkiller and a preclinical trial test of a hearing loss treatment. The company aims to have an IPO in 2025.