Chong Kun Dang headquarters in Chungjeongno, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul (Chong Kun Dang)

Korean pharmaceutical firm Chong Kun Dang said Monday that it signed a licensing deal with Dutch company Synaffix to gain access to the latter's technologies needed to develop new antibody drug conjugates.

The size of the deal, which was inked Friday, is estimated at around $132 million, plus tiered royalties on commercial sales in the future.

“The company will speed up development of next-generation anti-cancer treatment through the latest deal with Synaffix,” said Chong Kun Dang CEO Kim Young-ju.

ADCs are a relatively new class of anti-cancer agents designed as a targeted therapy for treating cancer. ADCs have been widely developed recently as they are intended to target and kill tumor cells while sparing healthy cells.

With the latest deal, Chong Kun Dang has secured access to Synaffix’ three antibody-drug conjugate platform technologies, GlycoConnect, HydraSpace and toxSYN, to develop ADC anti-cancer drugs, the company said.

They are the same technologies that multinational biopharmaceutical company Amgen has also recently gained access to, through a deal with Synaffix.

Since 2019, Chong Kun Dang has conducted joint research with Synaffix to discover competitive ADCs platforms that have superior efficacy and safety compared to existing ADC platforms.

Synaffix claims that the combination of the company’s three ADC technologies provides drug developers with a one-stop platform that can be used in developing ADCs.

Upon signing the licensing deal with Chong Kun Dang, Synaffix CEO Peter van de Sande also noted it will continue long-term collaboration to help the South Korean pharmaceutical firm develop new anti-cancer drugs.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)