Samsung Bioepis and Protina Sign Follow-Up AI Antibody Drug Contract, Candidate Discovery Next Year

License Option Agreement Linked to National Project
Samsung Bioepis to Lead Preclinical Research, Protina to Identify Drug Candidates

Samsung Bioepis and Protina have signed a follow-up contract for a government-funded project to develop AI-based antibody drugs and will work together to discover antibody drug candidates by 2027.

On July 9, Samsung Bioepis announced that it had entered into a license option agreement with Protina to commercialize the results of AI-powered antibody drug development.

Samsung Bioepis, Proteina company logo images. Samsung Bioepis

This contract is a follow-up to the national project, "Development and Validation of Antibody Biopharmaceuticals Using AI Models," overseen by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which both companies have been conducting in collaboration with Professor Baek Mingyeong’s research team at the Department of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, since October last year. The value of the contract has not been disclosed, according to the mutual agreement between the two companies.

The two companies will cooperate with the goal of discovering antibody drug candidates designed by AI by 2027. Protina will be responsible for identifying and validating these candidates, while Samsung Bioepis will lead the preclinical research up to the Investigational New Drug (IND) application stage.

If Samsung Bioepis exercises its future license option, it will proceed with clinical development and commercialization. Protina will receive milestone payments and royalties according to each stage of development.

Samsung Bioepis explained that it has obtained approval for 11 biosimilar products from major regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and has never experienced a rejection during the IND approval process.

Protina possesses technology that, through its proprietary antibody optimization and performance measurement platform, shortens the validation period—which used to take several months—to about two weeks, and can analyze more than 10,000 antibody sequences per week.

This collaboration also has ties to Samsung's future technology support program. Taeyoung Yoon, CEO of Protina, previously received support from the Samsung Science & Technology Foundation from 2014 to 2018.

Kim Kyung-Ah, CEO of Samsung Bioepis, said, "This will serve as an opportunity to expand our process optimization expertise, accumulated through biosimilar development, into antibody drug development," adding, "We will faithfully carry out the government-funded project in close cooperation with our partners." Taeyoung Yoon, CEO of Protina, stated, "The technology that combines AI and experimental validation platforms has now entered a critical stage of real-world drug development."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.