[Courtesy of CGBIO]
SEOUL -- CGBIO, a total healthcare provider in South Korea, has secured a 12.3 percent stake in Daewoong Therapeutics, a bio-venture company that has developed a transdermal drug delivery system using micrometer-sized needles that increase the diffusivity of drugs to the stratum corneum by creating micron-size pores in the skin.
With an unspecified amount of its equity investment, CGBIO CEO Yu Hyun-seung will be able to participate in management as the in-house director of Daewoong Therapeutics. Yu's company is trying to develop cosmetics, medical devices, and medicines using microneedle technology.
The microneedle drug delivery system developed by Daewoong Therapeutics is easy to manufacture and has secured physicochemical stability in storage and transportation.
"We will introduce the highest quality microneedle products to the market as soon as possible through open collaboration with experts in the industrial, academic, and research sectors at home and abroad," CGBIO CEO Yu Hyun-seung said in a statement on April 13. He said the strategic investment in Daewoong Therapeutics would help his company become a leading player in the microneedle market with high growth potential.
Microneedles or microneedle patches are made from a variety of materials ranging from silicon, titanium, stainless steel, and polymers. In 2021, the government-funded Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) commercialized a dissolvable microneedle patch that uses double-stranded salmon sperm DNA (SDNA) as a drug delivery vehicle. Nano-sized needles punch small holes in the skin to enable the painless self-administration of drugs. Needles dissolve after they finished delivering drugs.
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