[Young Journalist Sophia Lee] Amid growing competition between global pharmaceuticals and the bio industry, the next generation treatment that not only controls inflammation, even targets recovering bowel mucous membrane is grabbing attention. As the unmet need for long-term remission maintenance and prevention of recurrence is still high, the competition for securing candidate drugs with new mechanisms is expanding. 

Amid this, Daewoong Pharmaceuticals has signed a license-in agreement for next generation treatment for inflammatory bowel disease ‘INV-008’ on 13th. 

The total scale of the contract is 662.5 billion won including 6.5 billion won of advance payment and 665 billion won of milestones. Daewoong Pharmaceuticals has secured the right to develop and commercialize the candidate drug through this contract. 

Since it strengthened the new approach of regenerating damaged bowel mucous membrane, moving beyond conventional treatments focused on immune suppression, the contract is evaluated as significant. Daewoong Pharmaceuticals plans to lead the direction of development from the clinical stage and integrated promotion of indication expansion and global technology transfer. 

Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic intractable disease including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. It remarkably lowers the patient’s quality of daily life with repetitive stomachache, diarrhea, and bloody stool. Even though various biological formulations and JAK inhibitors are being used at the moment, there are some critiques that there are limitations in long-term remission maintenance and mucous membrane cure. 

Mucosal healing is especially rising as the core goal for next generation inflammatory bowel disease treatment recently. The concept is to recover the function and structure of damaged intestine tissues, beyond just suppressing the inflammation. 

‘INV-008’ is an oral treatment that expands the retention time of PGE2 which works for bowel mucous membrane regeneration in the body. The mechanism behind it is suppressing the enzyme ‘15-PGDH’ that breaks down PGE2, so bowel mucous membrane recovery is stimulated. 

According to the company, preclinical studies confirmed enhanced mucosal regeneration and reduced inflammation, also the development potential in the aspect of safety in the pre-clinical stage.

INV-008 differentiates from the existing biological formulations and JAK inhibitors, as it induces the regeneration of tissues while the others work to block immune and inflammation responses. Subsequently, the potential to be used with the existing drugs to target both inflammation control and mucosal healing at the same time is being raised. 

Daewoong Pharmaceuticals’s policy is to strengthen the new drugs pipeline regarding digestive system and expand open innovation strategy from this contract. They explained they built up a structure to divide the roles, that Daewoong Pharmaceuticals led global clinic and commercialization, while Innovo Therapeutics focused on discovering candidate substances based on AI and initial research developments. 

Sung Soo Park, CEO of Daewoong Pharmaceuticals said “this contract is not just the introduction of the technology, it is a strategic partnership to lead the direction of development together from the initial clinical stage and to take responsibility for global commercialization” and that they “will actively support INV-008 to be an innovative new drug with global competence”. 

Hee Dong Park, CEO of Innovo Therapeutics said “INV-008 is beyond ordinary inhibitor of inflammation, it is innovative treatment that leads bowel mucosal healing” and they will “speed up the global clinic and commercialization by the cooperation with Daewoong Pharmaceuticals”.

▶원문 기사: 대웅제약, 이노보테라퓨틱스와‘장 점막 재생’ 염증성 장질환 신약 개발 나서 (이코노미스트, 2026.5.13)
 

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