After Bluebird and Phoenix, what kind of bird will be the next partner for ABL Bio?
ABL Bio is scheduled to meet with big pharma at the JPM Healthcare Conference next week, and there is much speculation internally and externally about which 'bird' they will partner with this time.
The company gained attention in the market last year by successfully signing technology transfer agreements with global big pharma companies such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Eli Lilly. With the upcoming participation in the JPM Healthcare Conference, where the possibility of further technology transfers with big pharma can be anticipated, interest is growing regarding additional technology transfer agreements.
According to the bio industry on the 6th, ABL Bio is expected to meet with global big pharma at the JPM Healthcare Conference held in San Francisco, USA, from the 12th to the 15th. The company is tight-lipped about the meeting schedule, frequency, and company names, but it is reported that this year, unlike in the past, meetings will focus on big pharma.
An ABL Bio representative stated, "In the past, we had meetings with various pharmaceutical and biotech companies, but many did not lead to deals, so this time we plan to focus on big pharma."
Having successfully led technology transfer agreements with global big pharma, ABL Bio has been paying attention to security internally. To ensure that even insiders do not know which companies are being contacted, they have used codenames for the new names as if conducting a military operation, without directly mentioning the big pharma involved in the ongoing deals.
Previously, GSK was referred to as Bluebird, and Eli Lilly as Phoenix. It is reported that various types of codenames are emerging again ahead of the JPM Healthcare Conference. However, the reasons for the codenames have not been identified.
The deals made with global big pharma were facilitated by the JPM Healthcare Conference. A representative contract was the technology transfer with Sanofi. The contract with Sanofi, which was made at the JPM Healthcare Conference in January 2022, was finalized after six years of contact since 2016. A company representative explained, "We distributed flyers, but initially, it was not easy to even meet. We started to participate every year and began to share our research results."
The contract with GSK was made four months after the JPM Healthcare Conference in January last year. A company representative introduced, "We had been having meetings with GSK regularly, and after meeting GSK at last year's JPM Healthcare, the progress of the contract rapidly advanced and was finalized in April."
ABL Bio has platform technology and a new drug pipeline, but the one with the highest potential for additional technology transfer is Grabody-B. Grabody-B is a transport platform that carries drugs to the brain and has been transferred to Sanofi, GSK, and Eli Lilly. The scale of the contract made last year alone reached 7 trillion won. This led to a sharp rise in stock prices, with the stock starting at 29,750 won at the beginning of the year and increasing more than 6.7 times to close at 201,000 won on the 6th.
Industry insiders predict that the next contract to be transferred will also be Grabody-B. However, the company maintains that the possibility of technology transfer for other pipelines, such as anticancer drugs, cannot be ruled out.
ABL Bio's representative anticancer drug pipeline is ABL-001, a treatment for cholangiocarcinoma. Technology transfer has been made to Handok and the American company Compass Therapeutics. Clinical results from phases 2 and 3 are expected to be released in the first half of the year, so if commercialization occurs by early next year, it could be recognized as ABL Bio's first royalty revenue.
Meanwhile, ABL Bio will hold an overseas investor presentation (NDR) in the United States starting on the 19th.
