On October 20, 2020 Chaperone, a new drug development bio venture, reported that it has completed attracting 26 billion won in Series C investment (Press release, Shaperon, OCT 20, 2020, View Source;idx=33&pNo=4&code=press_en [SID1234629322]).
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This investment includes follow-up investments from four existing investors, including Smilegate Investment, Yuanta Investment, and Seoul Investment Partners, as well as a total of nine investments, including POSCO Technology Investment, Moorim Capital, BNK Venture Investment, Albatros Investment, JX Partners, and Nova Healthcare. agency participated.
The amount by investor was 9 billion won by POSCO Technology Investment-Moorim Capital Investment Association and 7 billion won by Smilegate Investment, and other institutions were responsible for the rest.
With this investment as an opportunity, Chaperon is currently in phase 2 clinical trial for atopic dermatitis treatment in Korea and phase 2 clinical trial for COVID-19 treatment in Europe, as well as septicemia treatment that has completed phase 1 clinical trial and phase 1 clinical trial. It plans to accelerate the development and commercialization of Alzheimer’s dementia and ulcerative colitis treatments. In addition, the development of nanobody therapeutics, which are alpaca-derived fragment antibodies that overcome the limitations of existing antibodies, will also be accelerated.
To this end, Lee Myung-se, who recently served as CEO of Eli Lilly Philippines and Korea representative director of Abbott and Mundipharma, has been recruited as co-CEO, and co-CEO Seung-Yong Sung, the founder, is promoting global commercialization in the technology and business fields.
The NLRP3 inflammatory complex inhibitor being developed by Chaperon is a newly emerging target in new drug development to the extent that less than 10 bio companies around the world have substances that have entered the clinical stage, and multinational pharmaceutical companies are highly interested in it.
While competitive substances inhibit only IL-1β, Chaperone’s new drug substance simultaneously controls the initiation and amplification steps of the inflammatory complex, suppressing a wide range of inflammatory factors such as IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α, resulting in various inflammatory factors. It is more effective for acute chronic inflammatory diseases and shows the fastest clinical stage compared to competitors.
Co-CEO Lee Myung-se said, "With the goal of an IPO in 2021, we will materialize commercialization through global open innovation based on the world’s first GPCR receptor-modulating inflammatory complex inhibitor and nanobody platform technology established by only a handful of companies in the world."