Cytogen, Japan NCCH collaborate on cancer research

South Korea's Cytogen, Inc. announced on Monday it will start cancer research using circulating tumor cells (CTC) with the National Cancer Center Hospital (NCCH) in Japan from the end of November this year.

Established in 1962, NCCH is Japan's leading specialized cancer treatment hospital. As part of NCCH's cancer treatment research and development project, Cytogen is promoting a project for the commercialization of CTC-based liquid biopsy.

To facilitate this, both parties signed a material transfer agreement earlier this month for the supply of blood samples. The first patient blood samples are expected to be delivered by the end of this month at Cytogen's Good Clinical Laboratory Practice (GCLP) lab.

The ongoing research involves taking blood samples through a low-temperature storage network (cold chain) and isolating living CTCs. CytoGen anticipates that its liquid biopsy platform will be utilized in cancer diagnosis and treatment-related research at NCCH based on the results of this study.

In the future, the collaboration may lead to the commercialization of cancer diagnosis services using the CTC platform at NCCH, including platform supply and the sale of diagnostic kits.

"While Cytogen has focused on business-to-business (B2B) transactions with pharmaceutical companies in Japan, the latest collaboration with NCCH marks an expansion into the business-to-consumer (B2C) market targeting cancer patients just like in the US market," a CytoGen source said. "Starting with NCCH, we plan to strategically expand collaborations with large hospitals in Japan."

Meanwhile, Cytogen plans to establish a local subsidiary in Tokyo by the end of the year and open an analysis center in January 2024 to launch CTC analysis services locally in Japan.

Write to Ye-Na Kim at yena@hankyung.com