Speaker Interview – Jin Gyu Choi

How do you view the current state and future direction of South Korea's neuroscience drug development landscape?

South Korea's neuroscience drug development landscape is transitioning rapidly from traditional follow-on research to high-value, novel innovation. Historically considered a challenging therapeutic area due to high clinical trial failure rates and complex disease pathology, CNS is now witnessing a major resurgence in Korea.

The future direction is firmly set toward multi-target therapeutic strategies, advanced drug delivery systems, and AI-driven biomarker discovery. Korean biopharmas are increasingly leveraging systems biology to tackle complex neurodegenerative disorders. At Mthera Pharma, we are actively driving this shift by employing a unique, differentiated strategy—combining AI, multi-omics, and multi-target drug discovery platforms—to address the multifaceted pathology of CNS diseases far more effectively than traditional paradigms.

 

What is driving the growth of CNS innovation across Korea's biopharma sector?

The surge in Korea's CNS innovation is driven by a powerful synergy between academia, emerging biotechs, and strong institutional support. Key drivers include:

• Novel Modalities vs. Differentiated Multi-Target Approaches: Many Korean biotechs are standing out in novel modalities such as cell therapy and gene therapy, as well as advanced BBB delivery platforms. In contrast, Mthera Pharma takes a distinct and highly differentiated approach: we focus on natural product-derived novel therapeutics, a domain relatively under-explored by others due to high technical hurdles, yet holding immense strategic importance as a rich source of multi-component, multi-target drug candidates.
• AI & Multi-Omics Integration: By applying our proprietary AI and multi-omics platform to overcome these complex analytical hurdles, we advance key assets like MT101 (a multi-target botanical drug candidate) and MT201 (a novel NCE candidate derived from MT101) to systematically target complex neurodegenerative networks.
• Proactive Global Business Development: Local companies are increasingly active in early-stage global partnering, driven by a clear mandate to validate pipelines through global licensing and collaborative R&D.

 

What insights are you most excited to share with attendees at the World CNS Summit South Korea?

I am particularly excited to share key insights on the growing global demand and paradigm shift toward multi-component, multi-target novel therapeutics for complex CNS disorders. As the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases is multifactorial, single-target approaches often face limitations, making validated multi-target assets significantly more valuable in the global market.

Specifically, I want to emphasize that securing clear proof-of-concept (PoC), especially supported by human evidence or clinical validation, dramatically elevates an asset's strategic value. In our global partnering discussions for MT101 (botanical drug candidate) and MT201 (NCE candidate), global pharma companies consistently show strong interest in diving into much deeper technical and strategic alignment once human PoC is demonstrated. I look forward to discussing how we can effectively bridge advanced multi-omics discovery with rigorous clinical proof to satisfy this global market demand.

 

What are you most looking forward to learning from your peers at the World CNS Summit South Korea?

I am particularly eager to explore practical methodologies and engage in latest discussions regarding translational clinical biomarkers and trial endpoints for disease-modifying therapies (DMTs).

Taking Parkinson’s disease as a primary example, traditional clinical endpoints focusing predominantly on motor symptoms—such as the MDS-UPDRS score—often face significant hurdles in demonstrating disease-modifying efficacy during early-stage clinical trials. Therefore, I look forward to exchanging insights on incorporating non-motor symptom evaluations (e.g., sleep disturbances and autonomic function) as meaningful clinical endpoints for early-stage patients.
Furthermore, discussing how to effectively integrate these non-motor clinical endpoints with cutting-edge, FDA-recommended biomarkers like the alpha-synuclein Seed Amplification Assay (αSyn-SAA) will be essential. Gaining deeper methodological clarity on these novel strategies, alongside strategic global BD criteria, will be invaluable as we advance our lead pipelines into clinical validation.