JW Pharma to use zebrafish in new drug development

South Korean drug developer JW Pharmaceutical has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Zefit, a domestic non-clinical trial institute that specializes in zebrafish models, to expedite the development of new drugs, the company said on Monday.

As per the agreement, JW Pharmaceutical plans to leverage the zebrafish model to expand indications of its new drug candidates and also develop new drugs. Zefit, in turn, will provide disease-specific zebrafish models using gene editing technology and a drug screening platform.

Zebrafish, a tropical fish species of which the genetic structure is more than 80% similar to humans, is increasingly being used as a non-clinical intermediary research model that can replace mammalian experiments, according to the company.

JW Pharmaceutical aims to reduce experiment costs by conducting animal experiments with zebrafish which can bring down costs to about one-tenth of those for mammals. The company plans to use zebrafish to bridge the gap between non-clinical and clinical research.

According to a zebrafish research paper published in 2013, the agreement rate with the results of mammalian experiments is as high as 91%. 

"Interest in zebrafish is increasing among regulatory agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and others in various countries. I hope that Zefit's latest research platform will contribute to JW Pharmaceutical's new drug research," said Shin Jun-nyeong, CEO of Zefit.

"Collaboration with Zefit will be a good opportunity to speed up the development of new drugs. We will actively use the zebrafish model to improve the efficiency and productivity of new drug research in the future," said JW Pharmaceutical's Chief Technology Officer, Park Chan-hee.

Write to In-Hyuk Park at hyuk@hankyung.com