Lemonex, a South Korean biotherapeutics and biotech company, was acknowledged with an Industry and Energy Ministerial prize for technology innovation at the Innovation Winner 2020 awards.

The Innovation Winner 2020 was hosted by Herald Corp. in collaboration with monthly magazine PowerKorea on Thursday.

Lemonex won for its original drug delivery technology called DegradaBALL.

“DegradaBALL enables effective delivery of various new drug candidates into cultured cells or lesions by loading the drugs inside,” said Won Cheol-hee, chief executive officer of Lemonex.

“It is a next-generation drug delivery technology optimized especially for the development of gene therapy, cancer immuno-therapy, antibody therapy, and synthetic drugs,” said Won.

“Pre-existing drug delivery vectors such as liposomes, micelles, and exosomes are inappropriate to maintain the size of the particles, the consistent level of the concentration of the drug loaded, and the stability of drug delivery system at room temperature,” said Chief Technology Officer Min Dal-hee of Lemonex.

DegradaBALL offers a differentiated solution, by controlling the size, the concentration and uniform stability with a convenient procedure, Min said.

DegradaBALL has been received by the industry as an original technology that overcomes the limitations of Lipid Nanoparticles (LNP), which are a drug delivery vehicle first approved in 2018 for siRNA drugs.

LNP has low transmission efficiency and a short half-life and can be applied mostly to liver.

DegradaBALL, on the other hand, lasts longer and could be used in development of medicines or vaccines to cure diseases relating to tumors, skin and muscles, as well as the liver.

LEM-S401, Lemonex’s DegradaBALL-driven siRNA medicine, has passed a preclinical trial on monkeys with outstanding results and is set to carry out a phase 1 clinical trial within the first half of 2021.

“We are also working in cooperation with professor Brian Berman and professor Alexander Meves, global authorities on skin plastic surgery and dermatology, to secure global level clinical developments” Won said.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)