Medigen collaborates with Japanese publicly listed company MEDINET to expand cell therapy market in Taiwan and to provide new option for cancer treatment
Medigen announces that it has entered into exclusive license agreement with Japanese publicly listed company MEDINET today (2019/10/07), under which Medigen obtains the exclusive right to use MEDINET’s immune cell Gamma Delta T cell (hereinafter as “GDT cell”) in Taiwan. Medigen plans to collaborate in the future with medical institutions under the regulation called「特定醫療技術檢查檢驗醫療儀器施行或使用管理辦法」 (hereinafter as “特管辦法”), for GDT cell to be utilized for immune cell therapy.
The GDT cell developed by MEDINET has been provided to approximately 50 medical institutions throughout Japan since 2007, and thus gathered definite evidences for gastric cancer and bone metastasis patients. Furthermore, such technology has been licensed to a Scottish biotech company to conduct phase II/III clinical trial for the treatment of lung cancer and other type of cancer. In the future, Medigen will submit GDT cell clinical treatment plan according to 特管辦法 and the GDT cell will be processed in Medigen’s CPU (Cell Processing Unit) for therapeutic use.
Although immune cell therapies such as NK, CIK, DC, GDT cell therapy are allowed under 特管辦法 for the treatment of end stage solid cancer and for treating cancer patients that failed standard treatment, only CIK and DC therapy have been approved, therefore there is still unmet needs for NK and GDT cell therapy. Regarding Medigen’s proprietary natural killer cell (NK cell), Medigen has already submitted clinical treatment plan under 特管辦法 with each of the following medical institutions: 義大癌治, 永長欣, 花慈, 醫者診所, 彰基, 柳營奇美and洛桑. Introducing GDT cell through current collaboration will not only expand Medigen’s pipeline for cell therapy, but will also provide mature and new treatment option for cancer patient in Taiwan.
MEDINET Co., Ltd.
Founded in October, 1995, MEDINET is the first biotech company in Japan to commercialize the immuno-cell therapy for cancer by providing its Immuno-Cell Therapy Total Support Service to medical institutions in 1999. MEDINET was listed on TSE Mothers (TSE Mothers # 2370) in 2003 MEDINET’s proprietary GDT cell processing technology can selectively expand Vγ9Vδ2T cells, cell population known to show cytotoxicity activity to cancer cells, up to tens of thousands of times.