바이오스펙테이터

by Jongwon Jang

Autotelic Bio announced that they had appointed two experts; MD. Yong-Kwan Jun, former director of Development Headquarters at Boryung Biopharma, and Ph. D. Chang-Hee Park, former project leader of NCE Discovery Team at Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd Research Center in August, 2020. Through this appointment, Autotelic Bio will focus its capabilities on clinical trials of new anti-cancer drugs; immuno-target dual action onco-therapeutic, development of additional anti-cancer pipelines and establishment of Antisense Oligonucleotide (ASO) based technology.

MD. Yong-Kwan Jun, Vice President, is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in clinical development research of new drugs, and also incrementally modified drugs, at large Korean pharmaceutical companies and multinational pharmaceutical companies. He will take on the role of directing the clinical development, design, etc. of the Autotelic Bio’s oncology pipelines.

MD. Yong-Kwan Jun, Vice President, graduated from Jeonbuk Nat’l University Medical School and obtained a MBA from Yonsei University Business School. Before moving to Boryung Biopharma, he worked as a Medical Director at multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Schering-Plough and Bayer. He also served as Vice President/Chief Executive Officer at C&R research, Parexel Korea, Bio Heart Korea, LSK Global conducting clinical development research; a head of R&D center-head of Kanab business division (Vice President) at Boryung Pharmaceutical group; Chief Executive Officer at KT&G Life Science; Chief Executive Officer/Vice President at Pharmedix/Pharvis pharmaceutical companies. Based on more than 35 years of abundant competence in the Pharmaceutical industry including new drug R&D, clinical, licensing, and business development, he will lead the clinical trial of ATB-301; a new immuno-target dual action onco-therapeutic in Autotelic Bio, which will be conducted in the second half of this year.

On the other hand, Ph. D. Chang-Hee Park, Director, led the design and development of various targeted oncology drugs with 15 years of experience in research and development of NCE as a MediChem at Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd., a Korean big pharma. He joined Autotelic Bio on August 1st, 2020 and he will take on the role of developing the base technology to improve the half-life and cell permeability of synthetic antisense oligonucleotide such as ATB-301; immuno-target dual action onco-therapeutic, which is the representative pipeline of Autotelic Bio, and directing the development of anti-cancer drugs.

Ph. D. Chang-Hee Park, director, majored in chemistry at Yonsei University and obtained his Ph. D. at Chung-Ang University. He specialized in the development of NCE and incrementally modified drugs for cancer and chronic diseases for 15 years at Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd.

Autotelic Bio is a research and development company focusing on the development of innovative oncology drugs.

Autotelic Bio has attracted 8 billion Korean won in Series A investment from Mega Investment, UTC Investment, Stonebridge Ventures, Aju Pharm., and KODIT in February, 2020. Autotelic Bio is developing a variety of immune and targeted oncology drug pipelines through Series A investment attraction, and developing ATB-301; Immuno-Target Dual Action Onco-therapeutic and ATB-310; Targeted Onco-therapeutic as its main research and development pipelines.

In particular, ATB-301 (TFG-beta2 inhibition & T-Cell activation’ Immuno-Target Dual Action Onco-therapeutic) has superiorly improved the anti-cancer effect compared to existing cancer immunotherapy in an in-vivo test, conducted through the 2018-20 TIPS project and Autotelic Bio is focusing on R&D with great expectation. Based on the in-vivo test result, ATB-301 was selected to a commercialization-linked technology development project by the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Energy in May, 2020 (R&BD May. 2020 ~ Dec. 2021, for a total of 20 months, 1.5 billion Korean won government grants) and scheduled to be conducted Phase 1b clinical trials in the 4th quarter of 2020 using support cost of this project.

Tae-Hoon Kim, Chief Executive Officer of Autotelic Bio said, “Autotelic Bio is pleasure and welcoming to appoint Vice President Yong-Kwan Jun and Director Chang-Hee Park. With this appointment, it is expected to have successful clinical trials of Immuno-Target Dual Action Onco-therapeutic (ATB-301), Targeted Onco-therapeutic (ATB-310) and Diabetic & Hypertension hybrid new drug (ATB-101) which was tech transferred to Jeil Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Also it is expected to speed up developing new innovative oncology drugs and to build a stronger R&D base for the company.” He also said, “Autotelic Bio will actively utilize their extensive R&D infrastructure to develop global innovative new drugs and create many opportunities for joint development.”

▲Left: Yong-Kwan Jun, VP, Right: Chang-Hee Park, Director