JW Pharmaceutical is doubling down on a “license-in” strategy—bringing in drug candidates developed elsewhere and handling development and regulatory approval in South Korea—while widening its reach by adding venture investment, industry officials said.
According to the industry on the 27th, JW Holdings, the group’s holding company, recently acquired venture capital firm Solidus Investment and made it a subsidiary. The deal was valued at 30.6 billion won. Solidus Investment is a biotech-focused VC with investments that include Alteogen, Orum Therapeutics and OliX.
Venture capital firms review a wide range of biotech companies and assess the commercial potential of their technologies. By bringing a VC in-house, the group aims to secure promising pipelines early and then use its research and development capabilities to move them into clinical trials and commercialization.
A JW Pharmaceutical official said the company concluded it would be more efficient to identify partners for joint research through a VC than to invest directly in biotech firms, calling it part of an effort to expand open innovation.
The company has continued to sign license-in deals structured to secure direct marketing rights rather than co-promotion. The approach requires higher upfront costs but allows stable sales without paying commissions. JW Pharmaceutical said it has used the strategy to establish high-revenue products including the cholesterol drug “Livalo family,” the hemophilia treatment “Hemlibra” and the arthritis drug “Actemra.”
More recently, JW Pharmaceutical signed an exclusive South Korea license agreement with China’s Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals for the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist “bofanglutide.” The total contract value is $81.10 million (about 119.8 billion won).
Bofanglutide is being developed as a subcutaneous injection given once every two weeks, with dosing convenience positioned as a differentiator. The company plans to begin a domestic Phase 3 trial in the second half of this year for obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The strategy is to respond early to the metabolic disease treatment market by licensing in a candidate that is already well advanced in development.
License-in deals are difficult to turn into results without strong in-house R&D. On the 23rd, JW Pharmaceutical completed dosing the last patient in a multinational Phase 3 trial of its gout candidate “epaminurad.” Epaminurad is an oral new drug candidate being developed for hyperuricemia and gout, conditions marked by abnormally high uric acid levels in the blood. Trials were conducted in five Asian countries including South Korea, and the company expects to produce a results report within the year after the final dosing in Malaysia. The company said it aims to develop the drug as a “best-in-class” therapy.
JW Pharmaceutical’s R&D spending ratio last year was 14%, the biggest increase among major drugmakers. It exceeded the average for the top 10 pharmaceutical companies as of 2024 (11.3%), and R&D spending reached 107.9 billion won, topping 100 billion won for the first time in the company’s history.
An industry official said JW Pharmaceutical is placing more weight on building a medium- to long-term growth base than on short-term results, adding that it is likely to continue building a stable profit structure on the license-in strategy it has pursued for years.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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