SK Chemicals said Friday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nextgen Bioscience to strengthen cooperation on the discovery and joint development of new drug candidates, signifying its efforts to expand collaboration with other biotech firms through open innovation.
Under the agreement, the two companies will combine their respective drug development capabilities to jointly identify new drug candidates, particularly in disease areas where existing treatment options remain limited. The partnership aims to expand research collaboration across the entire drug development value chain.
The collaboration will cover a wide range of joint activities — the identification of new drug projects, research programs, shared use of research facilities and equipment as well as exchanges of research personnel, technologies and information.
Nextgen Bioscience, founded in 2018, specializes in developing treatments for autoimmune and fibrotic diseases based on the drug discovery platform Fibrain, developed in-house, which integrates artificial intelligence technologies with the company’s chemical library to rapidly identify promising drug candidates.
Using Fibrain — an AI-driven, end-to-end drug development system that links drug modeling, compound synthesis, screening and preclinical and clinical development — Nextgen Bioscience has been advancing multiple pipelines, including therapies for alopecia areata, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and wet age-related macular degeneration.
A number of Nextgen Bioscience’s autoimmune and fibrosis drug candidates have recently been selected for government-funded research programs or have entered clinical stages, indicating their research progress.
SK Chemicals, which is currently developing drug pipelines across various therapeutic areas such as oncology and fibrotic diseases, has been expanding its early-stage drug pipeline through collaborations with partners as part of its open innovation strategy.
Building on the new agreement, the two companies plan to explore broader collaboration opportunities covering the full drug development process — from early-stage lead discovery to preclinical and clinical development — and to identify and advance new joint research projects in phases.
“Open innovation is one of the key strategies for rapidly securing the capabilities required for drug development through partnerships with specialized companies,” said Park Hyun-sun, head of SK Chemicals’ pharma business.
“By expanding collaboration with companies such as Nextgen Bioscience, we will continue to strengthen SK Chemicals’ new drug portfolio.”
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