· Using immune regulatory T cells and NK cells, IMMUNIQUE aims to develop immune disease therapy and immuno-oncology remedies with improved efficacy.
· Strategizes to minimize trials and errors leveraging on the commercialization of cellular therapeutics from the parent company.
MEDIPOST (Yang Yoonsun, CEO) announced on the establishment ‘IMMUNIQUE,’ an R&D company that specializes in immune cellular remedies derived from cord blood to begin the development of cellular immunotherapys.
IMMUNIQUE, with 99% shareholdings by MEDIPOST, is a combination of ‘Immune’ and ‘Unique,’ expressing the strong vision to develop the best immunocellular therapy.
As the needs for allogenic cellular immunotherapy have increased to overcome the limitations of existing T cell therapy, Immuique’s objective is to develop medications for autoimmune disease and anticancer immunotherapy with improved treatment efficacy through utilizing immune regulating T cells and NK cells separated and cultivated from allogeneic cord blood as well as stem cells.
Immune cells derived from cord blood is the healthiest and most primitive cell. They are not only least exposed to external factors that may cause genetic mutations but also retains high functionality to cure the cell itself. Moreover, immune-regulating cells separated from cord blood, and cultivated were confirmed to be better in long-term storage stability such as survival rate and recovery rate, as well as efficacy and reproduction, compared to immune-regulating cells drawn from adult blood.
IMMUNIQUE appointed professor Lee Youngho at the Pediatrics Department of Hanyang University Medical Center and a well-renowned expert in cord blood as a Chief Executive Officer to lead the effort for patient treatment using cord blood and fundamental research. As Dr. Yang Yoonsun, the CEO of MEDIPOST, and Dr. Oh Wonil, the director of research and development at MEDIPOST also participate in its research advisory committee, their R&D effort is expected to create synergy.
A source from MEEDIPOST commented that “decided to establish a company specialize in cellular immunotherapy to focus on R&D and accelerate development independent from the existing research organization based on fresh ideas as a startup with new research personnel.”
Moreover, Dr. Lee Youngho, the CEO of IMMUNIQUE, emphasized that “While IMMUNIQUE is a start-up company, we share the know-how in bio-pharmaceutical product development and commercialization with MEDIPOST, the parent company, based on their fundamental research on cord blood and excellent quality raw material cells, so we can minimize the trial and error in developing new cellular-medicines; that is our distinctive competitive-edge”, “Our goal is to further improve treatment effects using stem cells to cure intractable diseases, and develop a cellular immunotherapy that can be mass-produced,” Lee stated.