South Korea’s Chong Kun Dang and Hanmi Pharmaceutical said Thursday they presented their research results of novel diabetes treatments at the 2019 European Association for the Study of Diabetes held in Barcelona, Spain.

At the 55th annual event held from Monday through Friday, Chong Kun Dang reported the efficacy of its thiazolidinedione type diabetes treatment Duvie for patients with insulin resistance syndrome. It is the 20th in the list of novel drugs developed in Korea and was commercially launched in 2014. 

According to the firm, Duvie had better results for metabolic syndrome than Sitagliptin, a DPP-4 inhibitor.

The company backed up its claims with clinical trials carried out at 27 domestic institutions targeting 247 Type 2 diabetes patients between January 2015 and October 2018.

Hanmi, on the other hand, outlined three novel drug candidates it is developing -- triple agonist, glucagon analog and efpeglenatide.


 

Triple agonist is a drug candidate to treat nonalcoholic steatoheapatitis (NASH), or fatty liver, which currently has no cure.

Hanmi’s triple agonist accelerates glucagon, GLP-1 and GIP receptor. Glucagon increases metabolism, GLP-1 stimulates insulin secretion and suppresses appetite and GIP receptor casts anti-inflammatory effects. The company said it has seen the efficacy of triple agonist through three preclinical trials and plans to start global phase 2 clinical trials by 2020.

For the obesity treatment candidate, glucagon analog, Hanmi said that it has confirmed the possibility to develop it as a drug to tackle both obesity and diabetes through its preclinical trial tests. A long-term injection of glucagon analog to obese animals showed weight loss effects as well as increased metabolism.

As for the diabetes treatment candidate efpeglenatide, Hanmi delivered a joint presentation with French big pharma Sanofi, which is concurrently running five phase 3 clinical trials globally.

“It is with delight to present innovative biologics drug based on Hanmi’s original lapscovery technology,” said Hanmi’s President and CEO Kwon Se-chang.

“Through global events such as the US’ American Diabetes Association meeting in June and EASD, Hanmi will continue to prove its research and development capabilities and work toward commercialization of drug candidates,” Kwon said. 

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