WuXi AppTec, an open-access R&D capability and technology platform company, has opened a branch office in Seoul, South Korea, reports advancements of an antibody drug conjugate (ADC) candidate, and has formed a strategic alliance to support the China Precision Medicine Initiative. 

Located at an industrial park in the Pangyo Techno Valley, the WuXi AppTec Korea branch will bring WuXi's platform of capabilities closer to the life science community in South Korea. It is the latest addition to WuXi's global footprint of 5 million square feet of facility space across 23 sites and offices worldwide.

In other news, WuXi Biologics, a wholly owned subsidiary of WuXi AppTec, reports that its partners, Ambrx and Zhejiang Medicine Company (ZMC), have completed dosing of the first patient for ARX788, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) product candidate for treating breast cancer and gastric cancer in Australia. ARX788 was developed by Ambrx based on its EuCodeTM technology platform. In June 2013, Ambrx and ZMC formed an collaboration to develop ARX788 in China.

As part of the collaboration, WuXi provided integrated services for ARX788 from clones to the investigational new drug (IND) filing WuXi successfully scaled up manufacturing processes for the toxin/linker, the monoclonal antibody, the ADC drug substance and drug product under cGMP conditions. This project involved a site-specific ADC using a non-natural amino acid technology. The IND for ARX-788 was approved in Australia and New Zealand. The IND application was also accepted by Chinese Food and Drug Administration last month.

And in another development, Huawei, a global information and communications technology provider, and WuXi AppTec, have signed a strategic framework agreement to support the China Precision Medicine Initiative (China PMI) through the creation of a precision medicine cloud platform. The agreement builds on Huawei's capabilities and reach in cloud infrastructure and the genomics and precision medicine expertise of WuXi NextCODE, a global genomic information and precision medicine subsidiary of WuXi AppTec.

Source: WuXi AppTec (South Korea), WuXi AppTech (Ambrx and ZMC) and WuXi AppTech (China PMI)