Cellus Inc. is developing a tumor-associated macrophage based next-generation immuno-oncology drug that responds to the immune evasion of cancer.
Making our best efforts to develop innovative anti-cancer drugs with a first-in-class drug development platform based on TAM.
Development of tumor-associated macrophage based next-generation immuno-oncology drugs of cellus would be a novel therapeutic strategy including the discovery of druggable biomarkers, platform-based analysis, clinical trials, and drug approvals.
We established by Aug, 2020 in Seoul National University hospital spin-off. Our capital amount is 1.2M USD and series A fund raised 3.5M USD until now. We have got 10 Korean Gov’s R&D fund programs with total 2.2M USD has been supported.
Now, cellus has 5 pipeline found and developing, 2 of pipelines proceeding pre-clinical stage with Lead, and 3 of pipelines are HIT development or optimization.
Cellus was founded in August 2020 by CEO Seong Keun Kim (ph.D. of immunology at the college of medicine, catholic university of Korea) and CMO Sun-wook Cho (a professor of endocrinology at Seoul National University Hospital).
Kim is developer of antibody, and immuno-oncology drugs of cellus are to overcome the limitations of third-generation immuno-oncology drugs such as low patient response.
Tumor-associated macrophage is a key player in tumor microenvironment, and can down-regulate T cell activity as well as up-regulate tumor progression.
In addition, they have been also reported to be actively involved in the acquisition of drug resistance.
Cellus expects to overcome the limitations and resistance of existing anti-cancer drugs by discovering TAM-specific biomarkers and developing therapeutic drugs, as well as providing a new therapeutic strategy for rare cancers without treatments.
At the time of initial investment attraction in July 2021, It was valued for 27.4 billion won, a five-fold increase.