SK Biopharmaceuticals has followed through on its promise to place big bets in a bid to become Asia’s radiopharma leader. The Korean biotech got the ball rolling by striking a $571.5 million biobucks deal to license a drug candidate in development at Full-Life Technologies.
Today, SK’s pipeline and portfolio is focused on central nervous system disorders, with the epilepsy drug Xcopri leading the charge. But the biotech is making a concerted effort to branch out. One year ago, SK outlined plans to expand in oncology and identified radiopharmaceuticals as one of the modalities at the heart of the push. SK is joining a who’s who of Big Pharma companies on the hunt for radiopharma deals.
The expansion plan led SK to Full-Life, a radiotherapeutics biotech with operations in Belgium, Germany and China. Specifically, SK has plucked the NTSR1-directed radionuclide drug conjugate program FL-091 from Full-Life’s pipeline.
NTSR1 is overexpressed in tumors including colorectal, breast, pancreatic, and head and neck cancers, leading Full-Life to identify the neurotensin receptor as a potential target for a radioligand. The biotech recently published preclinical data on FL-091. The public pipeline of Full-Life, which has a PSMA program in human testing, puts FL-091 on the cusp of clinical development.
SK has secured global rights to take FL-091 forward through a deal worth up to $571.5 million in upfront and milestone payments. Neither party has disclosed the size of the upfront payment. The deal gives SK the right of first negotiation to license other pre-selected Full-Life programs.
The deal is part of a broader expansion into radiopharmaceuticals. SK CEO Donghoon Lee used the press release about the deal to tease the unveiling and implementation of radiopharmaceutical business plans later this year. The company put another piece of its oncology strategy in place in 2023 when it bought a 60% stake in Proteovant Therapeutics to add protein degradation capabilities and a cancer R&D center.