Patent applications submitted in the U.S., Europe, China, Australia, and Hong Kong
[by Yu, Suin] Vaxcellbio announced on July 1 that it has completed patent registration in Korea for its core proprietary technology, ‘Composition for Proliferation of Natural Killer Cells Including Feeder Cells.’
This patent represents an advanced technology that enables the mass production of high-purity, high-cytotoxicity natural killer (NK) cells using ‘Feeder Cells’ independently developed by Vaxcellbio.
Vaxcellbio completed patent registration for this technology in Japan in April and is currently pursuing registration in the United States, Europe, China, Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong. Given that Japan is known for applying particularly stringent evaluation standards to foreign biotechnology patents, the company stated that securing registration in both Korea and Japan serves as strong validation of the technology’s originality and technical completeness.
This technology is distinguished by its superior amplification rate and cell purity compared to conventional feeder cell-based methods, significantly increasing the production efficiency of NK cell therapies. Leveraging this technology, Vaxcellbio successfully completed a Phase 2a clinical trial for ‘VCB-1102 (development code),’ an NK cell therapy candidate targeting hepatocellular carcinoma.
“As evidenced by the successful patent registrations in both Korea and Japan, the originality and competitiveness of our NK cell therapy production technology have been recognized on the global stage,” said Lee Je-jung, CEO of Vaxcellbio. “Building on this foundation, we aim not only to reinforce the commercialization potential of NK cell therapies but also to broaden the scope of our cell therapy platform to include next-generation pipelines such as bone marrow infiltrating lymphocytes and dual-target chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), thereby further strengthening our competitiveness in the global market.”
Conversely, Vaxcellbio has recently expanded its intellectual property (IP) portfolio by securing a series of patents related to its CAR pipeline. These include patents for a ‘monobody-based chimeric antigen receptor’ and a ‘novel method for manufacturing natural killer cells, as well as a liver cancer treatment method using the same.’
Moreover, the recent selection of CAR-MIL (chimeric antigen receptor myeloinfiltrating lymphocyte) therapy for multiple myeloma and dual-targeting chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy for solid tumors as national projects has drawn significant attention to the company’s capabilities in developing and commercializing next-generation therapeutic pipelines.