"We will achieve global technology licensing next year with the world's first technology that resolves the side effects of Alzheimer's treatments."
Park Sang-hoon, CEO of Ilimmis Therapeutics (Ilimmis), made this announcement in an interview with Seoul Economic Daily on the 2nd, stating that "our goal is to develop a standard Alzheimer's treatment within the next five years."
Ilimmis drew industry attention last year by securing 58 billion won ($42 million) in Series B funding despite the biotech investment freeze. Cumulative investment has reached 94.2 billion won. This is an exceptional achievement for a five-year-old venture with no pipeline in clinical trials or technology licensing track record. Park attributed the successful fundraising to "validated research data published in prestigious journals such as Nature Medicine and proven business viability through collaboration with global pharmaceutical companies."
Ilimmis's core technology is the 'GAIA' platform, which removes dementia-causing proteins without inflammation. "Existing Alzheimer's treatments cause inflammation when removing amyloid beta, leading to side effects such as brain edema and microhemorrhages," Park explained. "The GAIA platform simultaneously achieves toxic protein removal and immune regulation with a single drug, minimizing inflammation." The strategy reduces side effects by clearing toxic proteins while restoring brain immune cell function. It applies the targeted-immunotherapy combination strategy proven effective in cancer treatment to brain diseases.
As a platform technology, it offers significant scalability. "We will expand beyond neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and ALS to autoimmune conditions including inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis," Park emphasized.
The dementia drug candidate 'ILM01' also features a differentiated mechanism. It suppresses inflammation by utilizing TAM receptors instead of conventional Fc receptors. Ilimmis is the world's first company to attempt new drug development using TAM receptors. "Our goal is to obtain IND approval for Phase 1 clinical trials in the first half of next year," Park said.
Big pharma recognized Ilimmis's technology first. The company is conducting joint Alzheimer's research with Eli Lilly—a first for a Korean company—and has established a permanent collaboration system by setting up at Lilly Gateway Labs in Boston. "As a latecomer in the dementia treatment market, Lilly has strong interest in resolving side effects to strengthen the competitiveness of its treatment 'Kisunla,'" Park revealed. "Results from the joint research will come out at the end of this year." Depending on the results, there is potential for follow-up investment as well as expanded cooperation into brain disease targets beyond Alzheimer's and drug delivery.
Ilimmis is targeting an IPO in 2028. With listing requirements becoming more stringent recently, the company is accelerating efforts to achieve commercialization milestones. "Next year, we will simultaneously achieve clinical entry and global technology licensing," Park said confidently. "As a platform company, we can combine various antibodies, enabling us to continuously pursue early-stage technology licensing."
Meanwhile, Ilimmis is developing an antibody fusion protein platform technology through the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' 'Deep Tech Challenge Project (DCP)' that improves side effects of existing antibody treatments and enables simultaneous treatment of neurodegenerative brain diseases and inflammation control.