AprilBio said Tuesday it has terminated its joint research and development agreement with Yuhan Corporation ahead of schedule. The company plans to concentrate its development capabilities on commercially promising areas such as antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
AprilBio and Yuhan had signed the joint R&D agreement on August 19, 2022, leveraging each company's fusion protein technology and cancer-targeting technology. The upfront payment was not disclosed at the time, and it has been confirmed that there is no refund obligation. AprilBio explained that the two companies started at the early candidate discovery stage and did not advance to clinical trials.
Regarding the termination, the company described it as a selection-and-focus strategy in response to the rapidly changing global market. The strategy prioritizes development in areas with strong commercial viability and competitiveness. "Global companies are increasingly focusing their new drug development strategies and investment targets on new modalities," an AprilBio official said. "Accordingly, we will utilize our proprietary platform 'REMAP' to concentrate our development capabilities on pipelines that align with global market trends and offer high commercial viability and competitiveness, including ADCs and antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOCs)."
AprilBio plans to unveil proof-of-concept (POC) results for REMAP at Bio USA 2026 in June and launch full-scale global partnering activities. The company is also preparing to release clinical results for its key pipeline candidates, APB-A1 and APB-R3.
