Korea’s Deargen plans new treatment for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Deargen, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered drug discovery and development startup, has signed an agreement with Sookmyung Women’s University Research & Business Development Foundation in South Korea for licensing biomarker technologies for determining the progression stage of NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) patients. Proprietary biomarker technologies licensed by Deargen from Sookmyung Women’s University Research & Business Development Foundation can identify stages in patients with steatosis and NASH. The licensed technologies are outcomes of Collaborative Genome Programme for Fostering New Post-Genome Industry where transcriptomes in samples from patients were analysed using machine learning. Based on the agreement, Deargen obtains three patent rights for biomarkers of NASH. After conducting verification of licensed biomarkers, and combining its unique AI-based capability of developing new drugs with the know-how of Managing Director Inhwan Bae who experienced the entire cycle of new drug development at Hanmi Pharmaceutical, Deargen will accelerate the development of new drugs for NASH that has no available treatments yet.