Stand Up Therapeutics Co., Ltd, located in South Korea, is a gene therapy company for paralyzed patients with spinal cord injury. Stand Up Therapeutics announced on July 21st that it had signed an agreement with VectorBuilder Inc., a global leader in gene delivery solutions, to manufacture a GMP grade gene delivery system. 

VectorBuilder is the world’s largest supplier of customized vectors for viral and non-viral gene delivery, operating as a multinational corporation headquartered in Chicago, USA with offices in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, Australia and Israel. Currently, more than 80,000 custom vectors are produced annually for numerous researchers around the world. VectorBuilder has GMP facilities for gene delivery systems, and supplies gene therapy products and delivery systems for thousands of institutions around the world and more than 50,000 customers, including all the leading pharmaceutical companies and major universities. We are supplying gene therapy products and delivery systems. 

According to Stand Up Therapeutics, through this agreement, VectorBuilder will produce and supply gene therapy products designed by Stand Up Therapeutics in the future. The plan is to dominate the world market.

VectorBuilder’s Chief Scientist Bruce Lahn said, “VectorBuilder is very interested in Stand Up Therapeutics’s gene therapy for the treatment of paralysis at the global level. As a world leader in the design and GMP manufacturing of gene delivery vectors, I hope it would be a good opportunity for VectorBuilder to supply this product to Stand Up for patients worldwide.”

Stand Up Therapeutics CEO Dr. Junsang Yoo said, “Stand Up Therapeutics is the only one in the world that has the technology that treats paralyzed patients due to spinal cord injury using own developed direct cross differentiation technology (LYH-001). Members of Stand Up Therapeutics will work hard to develop a treatment for patients suffering from paralysis due to traumatic injury.” Also, “With the direct cross-differentiation PIPELINE technology, Stand Up Therapeutics plans to develop treatments for stroke (LYH-002), spinal muscular atrophy (LYH-003), spinal stenosis (LYH-004) and myocardial infarction (LYH-005) in the future.”

Today there are no approved therapies to prevent or reverse paraplegia, which affects nearly 1 in 50 people worldwide. Stand up Therapeutics is currently conducting the phase I and II clinical trials of LYH-001, a direct cross-differentiation drug. In pre-clinical trials, LYH-001 successfully treated paraplegia in the lumbar-5 spine injury animal model within 40 days. 

This year, LYH-001 is scheduled to be administered for the treatment of Mr. Lee (34 years old), a patient who suffered an unexpected traffic accident at the Gonjiam Tunnel in 2019.