Gene Therapy Research Institution enters into a technological alliance including collaborative research with ToolGen, a bio company of genetic engineering based in Korea as of August 12, 2014.
ToolGen is a bio company started in Seoul University led by Dr. Jin-Soo KIM, a world-renowned researcher in genetic engineering. ToolGen is a publicly-traded company on the KONEX market (Code number: A199800). ToolGen mainly researches the development of genome editing technology in genetic engineering field, and they have published many papers. Since 2010, innovations in technologies for editing genome have continuously occurred, for instance ZFN, TALEN, and especially in 2013, CRISPR/Cas9 as a latest technique have been released. ToolGen is a leading company in these technologies.
We perform collaborative research in this technological alliance, mainly in gene therapy regarding Hemophilia A. Clinical research of gene therapy for Hemophilia has been started in the United States and Europe, however, to combine the Gene Therapy Research Institution’s AAV vector technology and ToolGen’s latest genome editing technology with high efficiency specifically CRISPR/Cas9 and TALEN, we need to lead the preceding gene therapy being performed in the United States and Europe. We will begin performing preclinical research in 1 or 2 years, and after that we are planning to do clinical research.
