HK inno.N receives sales permit for ulcer treatment in China

HK inno.N is expediting its global expansion with its latest drug K-Cab designed to treat peptic ulcers.

The South Korean pharmaceutical company announced Thursday it received the sales permit from China’s National Medical Products Administration for the treatment. China is the world’s biggest ulcer treatment market. 

The active ingredient in K-Cab is tegoprazan, a novel potassium-competitive acid blocker. 

It took the South Korean company’s local partner Luoxin Pharmaceutical Group one and a half years from requesting the permit to receiving it. The new drug will be available in China from the second quarter of this year. 

Luoxin will be in charge of K-Cab’s manufacturing and distribution. HK inno.N signed a contract worth $95 million with Luoxin in 2015 for the new drug's technological transfer to the Chinese partner.

“As Luoxin has some 3,000 sales employees and a diverse network, we expect K-Cab to penetrate the market quickly,” an HK inno.N employee told The Korea Economic Daily. The South Korean company will receive royalties for all K-Cab’s sales in China. 

According to US-based clinical market research agency IQVIA, the size of the peptic ulcer treatment market in China is around 3.1 trillion won ($2.5 billion). The goal of HK inno.N is to become the No. 1 ulcer treatment there.

The peptic ulcer treatment market size in the United States is $2.3 billion. 

Over in the US, HK inno.N signed a partnership worth $5.4 billion with Braintree Laboratories, Inc. last December to allow the latter to manufacture K-Cabs locally. 

Write to Suna Lee at suna@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.