“The country that global pharmaceutical companies should pay closest attention to after China is South Korea. However, whether a real ‘K-bio’ wave arrives five years from now depends on what we do.”

Lee Sang-hoon, CEO of bispecific antibody specialist ABL Bio (pictured), made these remarks in an on-site interview at BIO USA held in San Diego, United States, on the 24th (local time). ABL Bio is a Korean biotechnology company that develops anticancer drugs and treatments for degenerative brain diseases based on its “bispecific antibody” technology, which targets two different antigens at once. The company drew attention in 2022 when it signed a technology transfer agreement with global pharmaceutical company Sanofi for the Parkinson’s disease treatment candidate “ABL301,” leveraging its proprietary “Grabody” platform. In November last year, it also concluded a joint research and technology transfer agreement with Eli Lilly based on the Grabody platform.

Lee stressed that for Korean biotech companies to strengthen their presence on the global stage, it is not enough to simply promote early-stage technologies. “Big Pharma prefers ‘best-in-class’ drugs, whose potential has actually been confirmed in clinical settings, rather than merely ‘first-in-class’ drugs,” he said. “In Korea, there are still many early-stage technologies whose potential has not yet been validated in human clinical trials.”

He also pointed out that the domestic biotech industry needs to move away from a growth model overly focused on initial public offerings (IPOs). “For mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to take place, there must be a ‘solid’ asset that has advanced to Phase 2 or Phase 3 clinical trials,” Lee said. “It is difficult to close large-scale M&A deals based on a platform alone.” He added, “Korean biotech can move to the next level only by nurturing late-stage clinical pipelines and building structures that can be recognized in the global capital markets.”

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