SK Biopharmaceuticals (326030.KS) shared its experience developing and commercializing cenobamate, an epilepsy treatment, with pharmaceutical and biotechnology experts in the United States.
The company said on the 12th that it held a conference on the 10th in New Jersey with the New Jersey and New York chapters of the Korean-American Society of Pharmaceutical Scientists and Biotechnologists (KASBP) under the theme "From Unmet Need to Patient Access." About 170 people attended, including officials from SK Biopharmaceuticals, its U.S. subsidiary SK Life Science, KASBP and the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry and academia. They discussed key challenges across the full drug development cycle and opportunities for collaboration. The event was divided into three sessions covering research and development, clinical trials and regulation, and commercialization.
At the conference, SK Biopharmaceuticals shared the experience it accumulated through developing cenobamate on its own, winning approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and commercializing the drug directly in the U.S. Faculty members from New York Medical College and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School first outlined the challenges in developing epilepsy treatments and the unmet medical needs in the field. SK Biopharmaceuticals then presented the major turning points in cenobamate's research and development and discussed the practical lessons drawn from that process. The sessions went on to cover the FDA's new drug review process and cenobamate's clinical development, followed by discussions of drug pricing, market access strategies and growth strategies after commercialization.
SK Biopharmaceuticals said it plans to expand exchanges with global experts across academia and industry on the back of the event and to keep seeking opportunities that could lead to joint research and business partnerships.
"We organized this event to share our experience with the key decisions we faced while developing cenobamate," said Lee Dong-hoon, president of SK Biopharmaceuticals. "Bringing a single new drug to patients requires countless judgments and trial and error, and we hope our experience helps reduce that trial and error for others taking on similar challenges."