US-based Psomagen and Korean probiotics company Cell Biotech said Friday they will jointly strive for big data-based microbiome research and commercialization.

According to the memorandum of understanding, Psomagen and Cell Biotech will research microbial organisms that will show clinical efficacy in health care, as well as develop new probiotics products.

Using Psomagen’s big data analysis technology, they will identify potential novel drug materials and develop probiotics products specifically targeting regional, racial characteristics.

Cell Biotech, a probiotics specialist with 25 years’ experience in the field, has its flagship brand distributed in some 40 countries. It is researching for a lactobacillus-originated protein that will show therapeutic effects for colorectal cancer.

Psomagen, a subsidiary of Korean genomics company Macrogen, has built up its presence in the US’ capillary electrophoresis sequencing and next-generation sequencing field for 16 years. It acquired US’ No. 1 microbiome firm uBiome’s 246 patents and some 300,000 sample data in 2019.

Psomagen is gearing up for an initial public offering on secondary bourse Kosdaq. It will finalize its offer price by June 23 and bidding will begin on June 29.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)