GC LabCell said Wednesday that it has obtained a patent for a cell medium composition and the use for cryopreservation from the Japanese Patent Office.

The patent is about the technology that allows stable cryopreservation for a long time by securing cell homogeneity and survival rate before and after thawing natural killer (NK) cell therapeutics.

GC LabCell got patent for cryopreservation of NK cells in Japan. (GC LabCell)

NK cells are innate immune cells that attack abnormal cells or tumors in the body, but culturing in high-purity is tough, and the activation time is short. Therefore, the commercialization of cryopreservation and mass production is critical.

When a drug is manufactured using cells, the cells are generally exposed to a low temperature during the cryopreservation process, and the function gets damaged. NK cells are vulnerable in the freezing and thawing process, and their function is not preserved well with the standard method.

The company said it would be able to provide NK cell therapy when the patient wants to administer with their patents acquired in Korea and abroad, including cryopreservation and mass-production technology.

GC Labcell's technology is an allogenic method in which other people's NK cells can be used as raw material, unlike the Auto method, where only one's own NK cells can be used as therapeutic agents.

"The company has listed our patents of core technologies as an intangible asset for commercialization of NK cell therapies both at home and abroad to pioneer global markets," said Hwang Yu-kyung, director of GC LabCell's Cell Therapy Research Center. "We will speed up the development of next-generation NK cell treatments by continuously developing our technology."

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