On the 27th, Handok (CEO Kim Young-Jin) established an agreement with the Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF, CEO Joo Sang-Un) as Handok’s newly developing drug on Glaucoma has been selected as a project for KDDF.

Glaucoma is a disease where damaged optic nerves progress to blindness. The number of domestic glaucoma patients was 580 thousand (based on 2012 figures), and is increasing 9.9% annually. Existing glaucoma drugs cannot be used long-term due to side effects or insufficient IOP reduction. The treatment Handok is developing implements new mechanisms that show better IOP reduction results in animal studies. With this arrangement with KDDF, Handok will receive research funding from KDDF and proceed to derive the optimal preclinical candidate for glaucoma treatments.

“The cure in development is a first-in-class drug based on innovative mechanisms never attempted before. It will provide new treatment opportunities to glaucoma patients discomforted by existing drugs,” and that “Handok will work closely with KDDF to develop a world-class innovative cure,” said Jang Woo-Ik, VP of the R&D headquarters of Handok.

Recently, Handok has begun emerging into an R&D focused total healthcare corporation. Last year, Handok has received approximately 4.7 billion won from the government to fund new drugs, and ‘Ras-decomposing cancer treatment’, ‘HL2351 (its first bio pharmaceutical self-cure for inflammatory disease)’ and ‘growth hormone’ developed with Genexine has been selected as projects for KDDF.

The Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF) is a government-wide R&D project supported by Ministry of Education & Science, Ministry of Knowledge Economy and Ministry of Health & Welfare. It is the largest new drug development project in Korea, involving a total investment of 1.06 billion won (government 530 billion won, private sector 530 billion won) over 9 years until 2020.