GC LabCell Looking to Sign More Licensing-out Deals on NK Cell Technology

GC LabCell said on March 15 that its subsidiary Artiva licensed out its CAR-NK technology to the multinational pharmaceutical company MSD for US$1.88 billion in January. This contract applies only to three types of solid cancers. This is the second largest license-out deal for NK technology. CAR-NK technology kills cancer cells by attaching NK cells to chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) of immune cells.

Artiva was established in March 2019 jointly by GC Holdings and GC LabCell. Profits from the deal with MSD will be shared by GC LabCell and Artiva 52 to 48. As of the end of the third quarter of 2020, GC LabCell held 32.40 percent of Artiva's common shares and 11.68 percent of its preferred shares, respectively.

CAR-NK is attracting growing attention as a next-generation anti-cancer drug. According to the global pharmaceutical and bio data service Cotellis, licensing deals involving NK treatments surged from about 10 cases in 2019 to more than 20 cases in 2020. The amount of the deals also soared from US$3 billion to US$6.2 billion.

GC LabCell expects additional exports of its CAR-NK pipelines. A company official said, "The deal with MSD is not an export of drug candidate materials, but a platform export. We transfer the original technology related to NK cell therapy to MSD, but the contract limits its application to three type of solid cancer." He added that the company can export the technology to other companies for indications other than the three types of solid cancer.

GC LabCell believes that it has the world's best NK cell technology. "GC LabCell has secured mass culture and freeze preservation technologies, the biggest hurdle in developing NK cell therapies," said an industry insider. "There is a high possibility that big pharmaceutical companies prefer its technology."

Thus far, big pharmaceutical companies except Janssen, Merck, Takeda, and Sanofi have yet to secure CAR-NK pipelines. Currently, five companies have globally competitive CAR-NK technology. They are Fate Therapeutics, GC LabCell, nKarta, NantKwest, and MD Anderson. This is why GC LabCells is confident about additional exports of its CAR-NK technology.

Meanwhile, the global market for cell therapies is expected to reach US$11.96 billion in 2028 from US$1,071 million in 2018, according to a BIS Research report.