바이오스펙테이터

by Jongwon Jang

“ChunLab intends to collaborate with domestic- and overseas bio-pharmaceutical companies as well as accelerating spontaneous clinical development based on the competitiveness of its platform excavating candidate materials in microbiome for new drugs.”

President Chun Jongsik of ChunLab introduced its organizational strategy of acceleration of new drug development exploiting the 'Precision Taxonomy Discovery Platform', which is the platform of excavation of candidate materials in the microbiome for the advantage of identifying new drugs based on the refined classification.

ChunLab established the original source technology, which was based on the platform capable of excavating candidate materials of new drugs through securing over 14 million human microbiome data, as chosen from the database of patients suffering over 20 kinds of diseases in reference to the study of microbial genetics.

In particular, the platform of discovering candidate materials for the new drug of Chunlab exploits the information of complete genomic sequence of microorganisms, responsible for enabling identification and classification of microorganisms at the level proximal to species and strain. In addition, the platform can discover bacterial strains manifesting therapeutic efficacies to diverse kinds of diseases, including the identification of new unreported species of intestinal microbes through its use of the high resolution of taxonomic classification. For which, the technologies of Big Data of Human Microbiome and Artificial Intelligence are grafted and currently utilized on the process of discovery in this case.

Besides, it was explained that it secured the safety factors in that the bacterial strains, exhibiting therapeutic efficacies, were selected from dominant species of microorganisms originated from the large intestine of a healthy person. ChunLab has an advantage of having the access of the accurate and effective securing of microorganisms attributable to the ‘Strain Bank’ containing over 5,400 kinds of bacterial strains (over 70 species of new species).

President Chun Jongsik of ChunLab explained, “… our platform can find candidate materials for new drugs or for diagnosis of diverse kinds of diseases effectively in terms of the time as well as cost…”, “… we are accumulating the data continuously from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and brain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, autism, and dementia etc. …”.

ChunLab intends to promote the collaboration with domestic- and overseas bio-pharmaceutical companies based on the analysis of the competitiveness of its microbiome platform. The collaboration may comprise diverse formats including the technological transfer based on its platform and collaboration in new drug development of the identified microbiome, etc.

ChunLab also released the experimental results of efficacy of the candidate material, the ‘CLCC1’, derived from its microbiome platform for the animal test, wherein the candidate materials were administered solely for the hepatoma and co-administered for the colon cancer.

Above all, ChunLab verified the anti-tumor efficacy of CLCC1 from the sole administration thereof in the animal test of hepatoma wherein the ‘Orthotopic Model’, the tissue originated from cells of liver cancer, was successfully transplanted to the liver of animal. This means that the group of mice that took CLCC1 daily through oral administration, manifested respective tumor volume and significantly reduced the tumors as comparing to the mice in the control group.

ChunLab also identified the feasibilities of the sole- and co-administration of CLCC1 from an animal model of colon cancer (MC38). In the experiment conducted with the control group and groups distinguished into sole administration of immune checkpoint inhibitor (anti PD-1) and co-administration of ‘anti PD-1+CLCC1’, the group of sole administration of CLCC1 manifested the effects of inhibited growth of tumors similar to the group of sole administration of ‘anti PD-1’. In particular, the group of co-administration of ‘CLCC1+anti PD-1’ exhibited approximately 55% of inhibited growth of tumors as was noted comparing to the control group.

Kim Hyun , the CDO of ChunLab, stated, “…currently the local subsidiary in Australia was founded, and concluded the agreement with the CDMO equipped with the facilities of cGMP of microorganisms…”, “…We are promoting research and development activities targeting the Phase I Clinical Trial to be conducted in the second half of 2021…”. Besides, ChunLab currently promotes the research and development for pipelines of the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and reviews new options for treating brain diseases.

President Chun Jongsik of ChunLab stated, “… we intend to make our microbiome platform as a gold standard for the discovery of candidate materials of new drugs in microbiome…”.