Avixgen, a subsidiary of Dx&Vx, signs a licensing-out agreement worth USD 360 million with a U.S. biotech company for its next-generation drug delivery platform (ACP).
- This innovative platform technology, with exceptional scalability, has been recognized as highly valuable even with limited rights granted.
- DXVX is taking the lead in business development, with several companies in the due diligence stage, and additional deals are anticipated.
SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Avixgen, a subsidiary of Dx&Vx, announced on the 18th that it has signed a licensing-out agreement worth approximately USD 360 million with a U.S. biotechnology company for its next-generation drug delivery platform, ACP (Advanced Cell Penetrating Peptide). Avixgen is a drug development company in which Dx&Vx holds a 66.2% stake.
Through the licensing-out agreement, Avixgen grants the partner company, a U.S. biotechnology company, a limited exclusive license of ACP patents, and the partner applies and develops them only for its own drug development candidates. The partner will pay Avixgen a total of USD 360 million in upfront and development milestone payments. Royalties for 10 years after commercialization are separate. Other specific details of the agreement will remain undisclosed at the request of the partner.
The ACP platform, independently developed by Avixgen, is a peptide-based drug delivery technology designed with a unique structure. This platform enables efficient and stable delivery of drugs into tissues and cells either by conjugation or simple mixing with various drugs. With broad applicability across small molecules, peptides, nucleic acids such as RNA, and even antibodies, it is evaluated as a next-generation technology with high scalability.
In particular, preclinical animal studies successfully penetrated the blood–brain barrier (BBB), known as one of the greatest obstacles in drug delivery, using ACP-conjugated drugs, and secured results that improved motor function in damaged animals. This is evaluated as presenting a practical solution to the development of CNS (central nervous system) targeted therapeutics, which has been difficult to achieve with existing drug delivery technologies.
Dx&Vx and Avixgen are companies with leading expertise and technological capabilities in the South Korean biotech industry in developing peptide-based drug delivery technologies, and have accumulated therapeutic and delivery technologies based on multiple peptide platforms.
This agreement transfers only a very limited portion of ACP's outstanding scalability. BBB patents are also excluded from the contract. Nevertheless, negotiating USD 360 million in upfront and milestone payments is considered a very encouraging result.
Sung Jun Han, CEO of Avixgen, said, "This global licensing-out agreement is the first for our company and represents the fruition of years of continuous research and development efforts. We thank our partner for recognizing the value of our technology, and we expect to accelerate global market entry and further collaboration expansion by using this contract as a stepping stone."
Kevin Kwon, CEO of Dx&Vx, said, "We were able to achieve a great result by leveraging our business development capabilities to present our subsidiary's technology. We consider this practically our second global licensing-out success. This agreement is expected to have a very positive impact not only on licensing discussions for Avixgen's ACP platform-based BBB penetration technology but also on other pipeline licensing discussions of Dx&Vx."
This agreement was concluded as a result of Dx&Vx, the largest shareholder of Avixgen, being delegated business development authority and leading the negotiations. Given the nature of platform technology, multiple contracts with different companies are possible. Therefore, in the case of additional licensing-out deals, Dx&Vx will also secure meaningful revenues depending on the business development process. In addition, based on this achievement, additional outcomes are expected, such as bringing forward the timing of agreements in other ongoing negotiations.
Meanwhile, DXVX's largest shareholder is Chong-Yoon Lim, Chairman of COREE and eldest son of the founder of Hanmi Pharmaceutical Group.
SOURCE Dx&Vx
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