[E-Daily Reporter Shin Ha-yeon] FutureChem (220100), a company specializing in radiopharmaceuticals, announced on the 17th that it has been selected for the second call for research projects in 2024 by the K-Health Future Promotion Team (Korean ARPA-H) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The Korean ARPA-H project is a mission-oriented research and development (R&D) initiative that benchmarks the ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health) in the United States for challenging and innovative health and medical research and development systems. Its goal is to tackle national healthcare challenges by promoting high-cost, high-difficulty mission-centric R&D with significant ripple effects.
FutureChem will participate as a key research institute in the second call for the 2024 research project titled ‘Overcoming Challenges RACE: Ultrafast Verification and Rapid Development of New Drug Targets for Cold Tumors’. This will be conducted in the form of a consortium led by Seoul National University Hospital (Project Leader Professor Kang Gun-wook) with Seoul National University Industry Foundation, FutureChem, and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) as joint research institutions.
The detailed theme of this research is ‘Development of Radioligand Therapy for Untreatable Pancreatic Cancer and Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Through Ultrafast Drug Discovery and Rapid Verification Based on Generative AI’. By utilizing the latest technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Bioinformatics (BI), the project aims at high-speed target discovery and focuses on developing new treatments for refractory solid cancers (pancreatic cancer, triple-negative breast cancer) that do not respond to existing immuno-oncology drugs.
Specifically, the treatment method developed in this research will apply radioligand therapy (RLT), a technology gaining attention in the new drug development field. RLT is evaluated as an effective alternative to existing treatment methods as it can achieve high targeted therapeutic effects even with small doses. Therefore, the primary goal of this research is to develop new RLT-based drugs for treating refractory cancers.
FutureChem plans to leverage its 26 years of accumulated experience in domestic radiopharmaceutical new drug development and research capabilities to evaluate therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals and optimize new drug production. Additionally, by supplying and commercializing clinical trial drugs, the company is set to actively pursue the development of next-generation radioligand therapies targeting refractory cancers, securing the rights to pharmaceutical candidates developed for this purpose and managing their commercial development.
A FutureChem representative stated, “As a company focused on the development of radiopharmaceutical new drugs for 26 years, FutureChem possesses extensive technological capabilities from research and development of therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals to production optimization. In this research project, based on our accumulated experience and technology, we will effectively conduct evaluation and production of new drug candidates and dedicate ourselves to commercializing new drugs for cancer treatment.”
Meanwhile, if all stages of the project are successfully passed, the support budget is up to 15 billion KRW, and the development period is expected to last 4 years and 6 months until April 2029.