IMBIOLOGICS (CEO Ha Kyung-sik) announced on the 13th that it had been selected for a new project of the 2024 Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy Materials and Components Technology Development Project, a heterogeneous technology convergence project, and signed a project agreement with a total project cost of KRW 3.7 billion (government subsidy of KRW 2.5 billion).

The Materials and Components Technology Development Heterogeneous Technology Convergence Project is a program that selects and supports companies with global competitiveness for technological advancement and future market dominance. The project for which IMBiologics was selected this time aims to 'secure and conduct non-clinical research on a peptide-HLA multimer-based glioblastoma innovative treatment candidate (IMB-402).' The project period is from July 2024 to December 2026 (a total of 30 months).

The drug development concept of the IMB-402 project is to apply a cancer peptide-HLA complex to ePENDY, a multimer platform technology based on IgM antibodies, to selectively proliferate and activate only T cells specific to glioblastoma, and to add a co-stimulatory factor to prevent the activated T cells from falling into a state of lethargy. It is currently in the candidate substance optimization research stage, and through this project, it is planned to secure candidate substances and conduct non-clinical studies.

Ha Kyung-sik, CEO of iMBIOLOGICS, said, “I am very pleased that the project using our ePENDY platform technology has been selected as a national project for the first time,” and added, “I think it is very meaningful as it proves the competitiveness of our platform technology.”