NKCL Bio Group, exclusive license and
its contents
NKCL Bio Group has secured an exclusive
license by signing a contract for a patent-exclusive license. Exclusive license
refers to the right of the patentee, etc. to exclusively use the patented
invention as a business within the scope of a contract with a third party by
specifying the content, area, and period. The exclusive license secured by NKCL
Bio Group is an immune cell therapy technology through allogeneic-immune cell
culture, which expands the business area in addition to the original technology
owned by NKCL Bio Group.
Functional limitations of autologous NK cell culture
The existing NK cell therapy of NKCL Bio Group has been
developed and produced based on autologous NK cells. Autologous NK cells use the
own immune cells of each subject to resolve immune rejection and have rare case
of side effects. The safety of autologous NK cell therapy has been verified widely,
but there are some limitations in terms of efficacy and universality.
What will change with the exclusive
license?
According to the renowned journal
'Frontiers in Immunology', Immune therapy using allogeneic NK cell is much more
cost-effective and productive than that of using autologous NK cells. Since
immune cells from healthy donors always maintain a constant quality, culture
and treatment methods are standardized to ensure uniform quality of treatment.
In addition, it reduces the cost and increase
the accessibility to the public, in the sense that it can be administered to an
individual patient or multiple patients as well with a single culture, and the
storage of cultured allogeneic NK cells is effortless.
This means that it is possible to use and
culture allogeneic immune cells from healthy donors to treat severe, terminal
cancer patients in a state that autologous cell culture is
almost impossible due to a low activity level of cells and its small number. It
implies the achievability of effective treatment opportunities even for
patients with severe terminal cancer, where cell culture of its own subject is
not possible. For cancer patients who have limited time and opportunities, allogeneic
immune cells will provide more time and opportunities.
In addition to allogeneic immune cell
therapy, there are advantages in that the active ingredients of the culture
medium obtained during the culture process can be used as raw materials for
cosmetics or pharmaceuticals. It can be used as an active ingredient in
cosmetic and pharmaceutical compositions by securing a large amount of a
culture medium from which immune cells have been removed, that is, a culture
composition containing active ingredients such as cytokines.
Expected expertise in the bio industry
and expandability to other fields
By securing an exclusive license, NKCL Bio
Group has the right to develop pharmaceuticals and consumer goods (based
products) for allogeneic-immune cell therapy, able to expand and enhance its
expertise in the bio area. This means penetrating into another market in the
bio industry.
An official from NKCL Bio Group said, “NKCL
Bio Group has secured technology for autologous- immune cell therapy as well as
allogeneic-immune cell therapy, thereby stepping into unlimited marketability and
expendability. Ahead of the completion of the GMP automatic culture system
facility and the NK Immune Center, which are currently in progress, the
exclusive license will give the synergy effect grafting them in multiple areas.”
https://news.mt.co.kr/mtview.php?no=2022010315280891802