(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Jan. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — A subsidiary of South Korean pharmaceutical firm Green Cross Corp. said Friday it has participated in a partnership deal worth US$1.8 billion to develop natural killer (NK) cell therapies to treat cancer.
Under the collaboration, Green Cross LabCell will co-develop three kinds of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK cell therapies targeting solid tumors with Artiva Biotherapeutics Inc. for U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada.
Artiva Biotherapeutics is a U.S. entity set up in 2019 by Green Cross Holdings and Green Cross LabCell. It is an oncology company focused on developing and commercializing NK cell therapies to treat cancer.
The collaboration was initially signed between Artiva Biotherapeutics and Merck that utilizes Artiva’s proprietary off-the-shelf NK cell and CAR technology platforms.
Among the $1.8 billion deal, Green Cross LabCell and Artiva have signed an additional technology agreement worth $981.7 million as the two firms share a related CAR-NK cell therapy under development.
(Yonhap)
