Aimed Bio (0009K0) is moving into antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOCs), building on the technology it has developed in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). The company plans to broaden its research and development beyond oncology into the central nervous system (CNS), including brain diseases.
"We will expand our R&D from ADCs to AOCs and enter the CNS field," Aimed Bio CEO Heo Nam-gu said in an interview with The Seoul Economic Daily at the company's headquarters in Seoul's Songpa district on the 22nd. "We will develop and validate a blood-brain barrier (BBB) shuttle platform and then build a pipeline based on it." Unlike ADCs, which carry a drug payload on an antibody, AOCs link an antibody to molecules such as ribonucleic acid (RNA) that regulate gene expression.
Behind the company's rapid expansion is the cash flowing in from a string of licensing deals. Aimed Bio has signed licensing and joint development agreements worth a cumulative 3 trillion won ($2.2 billion) with partners including Boehringer Ingelheim and Biohaven. "Cumulative licensing payments received will exceed 100 billion won this year," Heo said.
Clinical progress on the licensed pipelines is also becoming visible. Biohaven recently confirmed objective responses, with tumors shrinking in patients across multiple cancer types, in a Phase 1 trial of AMB302, an ADC cancer therapy licensed from Aimed Bio. "We have moved beyond preclinical licensing to become a company that has secured proof of concept (PoC) at the clinical stage," Heo said. "It will be a treatment option with improved safety and efficacy compared with existing therapies."
Aimed Bio plans to broaden its licensing strategy, which has centered on preclinical-stage assets, to include out-licensing after conducting its own clinical trials. "Our goal is to file an investigational new drug (IND) application this year and win approval for AMB303, an ADC cancer therapy being co-developed with SK Plasma," Heo said. "Only by preparing on the assumption that we will run the trials ourselves can we command a higher valuation in licensing negotiations."
To secure next-generation pipelines, the company invested in three artificial intelligence biotech firms — Galux, Innocras and Avis — in the first half of this year alone. "With ADCs in particular, there is a strong correlation between target expression in tissue and patient response," Heo said. "If we use AI-based tissue analysis and companion diagnostics to streamline everything from patient selection to trial design, we can turn trials that would have failed into successful ones."
