On April 13, 2021 Bridge Biotherapeutics reported that the company’s former vice president, Lee Kwang-hee, the company established a new bio company named, Boostimmune, (Press release, Boostimmune, APR 13, 2021, View Source [SID1234634467]). It is a determination to develop an immuno-anticancer agent that will be effective against various cancers with MDSC inhibitor technology introduced by the University of Tokyo.

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Former Vice President Lee left Bridge Bio early this year and established BoostImmune in February. The company is located in Pangyo, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, and a total of three people, including CEO Lee Kwang-hee, are working. CEO Lee said, "We established the company for the purpose of developing a protein-based immuno-oncology drug, not a synthetic drug."

Tadatsugu Taniguchi, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, is the co-founder. Professor Tada is a scholar who first discovered ‘interleukin 2’ and ‘interferon beta’, regular customers of immunology research, and has published 300 papers related to immunology alone. There are multiple pipeline tasks, including MDSC inhibitors introduced by the University of Tokyo.

CEO Lee explained, "There are various mechanisms that prevent immune cells from working properly, and one of them is MDSC (Myeloid derived suppressor cell)." Representative Lee pursued a master’s degree in molecular biology at Seoul National University and a doctoral course at Washington University School of Medicine in the United States, and accumulated research and development experience at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Genentech, and Sanofi.

While working at Bridge Bio, he has experience in clinical application (IND) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for three drugs: ulcerative colitis treatment (BBT401), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis treatment (BBT877), and non-small cell lung cancer treatment (BBT176). .

BoostImmune’s role model is Genentech. Genentech is a first-generation protein drug company. Herceptin (breast cancer treatment), Rituxan (autoimmune disease treatment), and Avastin (metastatic colorectal cancer treatment), which are blockbuster biopharmaceuticals developed by Genentech, achieved sales of $6 billion (6.75 trillion won), $6.5 billion, and $7.1 billion, respectively, in 2019. . In 2009, Roche acquired Genentech for $47 billion (approximately 52 trillion won) and took the copyright.