Hello, this is SHIN, DONG-HWA, the president of NKCL Bio Group Inc. NKCL Bio Group Inc. is a company that leads the "Personalized Immune Care" market by expanding its business area from various angles by expanding research institutes for NK cell R&D, establishing a GMP automatic cell culture center, and commercializing microbiome food. The human body is composed of various immune cells, which defend against diseases and heal by controlling excessive immunity, such as autoimmune diseases. Treatment using these NK immune cells is becoming a new hope.

NKCL Bio Group Inc. has secured an NK immune cell treatment platform with the functionality of immune enhancement and immune control, and is striving to develop more effective NK cell therapy by combining automatic culture technology. As a company with respect for life as an ideology, we will continue to challenge and strive to grow into a successful global company by strengthening research capabilities based on industry-academic cooperation and playing a leading role in developing NK immunotherapy. NKCL Bio Group Inc. asks for your interest and support so that the group can become a global professional company.

◆ Please introduce NKCL Bio Group Inc.

NKCL Bio Group Inc. is a bio company that researches and develops immune cell therapy using NK immune cells based on excellent technology. Through differentiated immune cell culture technology, we are leading the popularization of effective NK cell immunotherapy for cancer treatment and immunity enhancement.

As a representative company of the Korean immune brand, we are expanding global marketing activities by introducing various immune care products and bio programs that combine biotechnology and immunity, with the goal of ‘Save One Life, One Soul’.

 

◆ What are the main products of NKCL Bio Group Inc.?

The main competitiveness of NKCL Bio Group Inc. is the NK immune cell automated culture system. With the GMP automated culture system incorporating artificial intelligence, it has found a culture environment optimized for each NK cell culture by itself, replacing the existing high-level manpower and improving production efficiency by more than 100 times.

In addition, NKCL Bio Group provides a 'Personalized Immune Care Platform' that encompasses the overall health promotion fields, from treatment and improvement areas to various immune-enhancing products and programs, to provide differentiated technological competitiveness, such as “targeted treatment, automated NK cell culture system, etc.” Through this, we are advancing from the global immuno-oncology market worthy of 100 billion dollars to the anti-aging/beauty market.

◆What are ‘NK cells’ and their functions in the human body?

Our body has cells that defend against pathogens, foreign substances, and viruses that invade from the outside, so they control the immune system or eat the bacteria directly. These are called immune cells. NK cells are innate lymphocyte cells with apoptotic activity. Unlike T cells and B cells, which have antigen-specific receptors, NK cells express various innate immune receptors on the cell surface, through which enables selective recognition of cancer cells. It is a cell that shows cytotoxicity that can immediately eliminate cancer cells without any other activation process, when cancer cells are recognized.
When NK cells recognize an abnormal cell, they spray perforin on the cell membrane to melt it, thereby making a hole in the cell membrane, then spray granzyme into the cell membrane to dismantle the cytoplasm, or inject water and salt into the cell to cause cell death. When cancer cells are recognized, NK cells can attack directly, but they also attack indirectly by secreting cytokines to activate cytotoxic T cells and B cells.

◆Bill Gates mentioned ‘immunotherapy, microbiome, and dementia treatment’ as three things that will change the world. How is the current status and outlook for those sectors?

The global immuno-oncology market is growing at a CAGR of 15%. It is in the spotlight as a next-generation anticancer treatment without the side effects of existing chemical anticancer drugs, and research is ongoing. Currently, it is used together with existing chemical anticancer drugs, but in the near future, it is expected to become a leader as of a standard anticancer treatment with its minimal side effects.

Microsoft founder, Bill Gates once said, “The three things that will change the world are the immunotherapy, the microbiome, and the treatment of dementia.” In September 2017, relevant ministries such as the Ministry of Science and ICT in Korea established and announced the ‘3rd Basic Plan for the Promotion of Biotechnology’.

In the basic plan, the government decided to select the microbiome as well as synthetic biology and gene editing as promising future technology fields, and to promote ‘Hanwoomul’ research support in the form of competition. Following the research results suggesting that the gut microbiome is related to immunity, atopy, nervous system, many diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cancer, it is progressing in the direction of using the microbiome for disease treatment and diagnosis. Accordingly, global pharmaceutical companies and bio venture companies are moving rapidly to enter this market. In addition, ‘Fecal microbiota transplant’ using the entire intestinal microbiome for the treatment of diseases such as Clostridium difficile infection is expanding worldwide.
In addition, domestic pharmaceutical companies and bio ventures are conducting research to develop new drugs such as immunotherapy using the microbiome. As such, the current domestic microbiome market mainly consists of functional products related to probiotics. It is expected to expand to personalized food and treatment using the microbiome.

◆ What kind of patents are the recently acquired ‘new patents related to cancer prevention vaccines and pharmaceutical compositions for treatment’?

As of April 29, 2022, NKCL Bio Group Inc. has acquired three new patents: a polymer nanoparticle-based cancer vaccine composition, a dendritic cell cancer treatment, and a cancer prevention and treatment composition. These patents are related to 'composition for cancer vaccine manufacturing' and 'cell therapy composition for cancer treatment', including cell cancer. It is characterized in that it was promoted in the form of ‘inventor as a University, proprietary rights belong to a company’. This patent relates to a 'polymer nanoparticle-based cancer vaccine composition' with excellent anticancer immunotherapeutic effects that can maximize various anti-cancer effects without externally providing information about the patient's cancer (cancer antigen information). It has the effect of increasing the cancer treatment effect more than 8 times compared to the existing anti-cancer immunotherapy and can be used in the treatment of various cancers and diseases.

 Recently, by acquiring a patent for a dendritic cell cancer treatment using a 'heparin compound', which is known to inhibit the occurrence of blood clots from a COVID-19 vaccine or therapeutic agent, a new way to develop not only immune cell therapy but also therapeutic agents that can cope with new pandemics is expected to open.

◆Please explain about ‘NK immune cell automated culture system’

Previous cell culture can culture cells of 3 patients per researcher and requires highly educated, high-cost researchers for culturing, so the cost of cell therapy is very high due to low efficiency and high cost. NKCL Bio Group Inc. has developed a GMP automation system of cell culture through research and development based on numerous experiences and data. This is the realization of a personalized immune care platform by researching and developing patient-centered NK immune cell therapy. The artificial intelligence automation system that finds the culture environment optimized for each cell by itself realizes the mass production and popularization of cell culture, NKCL has the technology to prevent price increases caused by previous high-cost researchers and to prevent leakage of original technology.

◆ What are the characteristics of ‘NKCL Bio Blockchain’?

Blockchain technology is a technology that can be very useful to efficiently manage and store human DNA or personal medical data. Beyond this, for the practical use of the bio blockchain, NKCL's bio blockchain has been upgraded with the technology of double block chain, and developed a technology that completely separates the private chain (personal information) and stores it separately. In the provision of personal health information, it will be possible to pass data while maintaining the protection of sensitive personal information. By combining medical data with blockchain, credible clinical big data can be built, and this can contribute to medical development, paving the way for future generations to cure cancer.

◆ Please tell me about the ‘NKCL Classic Project’?

NKCL Bio Group Inc. runs a personalized immune care platform that is being applied to various business fields such as anti-cancer, anti-aging, beauty, and products. The NKCL Classic project was developed to solve the inconvenience caused by the differences in these business areas. Brand tokens are used for a limited purpose and can be used as a means of compensation to suit the purpose of the business.

It is a project that converges medical big data with practical big data in various business fields by protecting personal information and preventing data forgery, through NKCL's unique double block chain technology and existing blockchain technology.

◆ Please tell us about the DApp, mainnet, and additional listings of the ‘NKCL Classic’ token.

Currently, NKCL C token is being used in the real economy through a dedicated wallet application called Purple Wallet. It has already been commercialized on all platforms of NKCL. As for the mainnet, we are also developing our own mainnet by customizing the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger open source, and we aim to complete the development within two years. Although we have already achieved a process rate of over 80% this year, the development time was inevitably delayed due to the need for continuous updates in line with the rapidly changing coin market. In other words, we have already been able to get it on track to some extent, but we can say that it is constantly being updated due to the flow of the coin market. Next, additional listings are being pursued to be added to about 2-3 domestic and foreign platforms within this year.

◆The bio-health care industry is growing rapidly after Covid-19. How is the blockchain technology applied to the bio industry and what is the future prospect?

The core of the bio-healthcare industry, which is rapidly growing after COVID-19, is the platform.

NKCL is researching and developing to add dual blockchain technology to existing blockchain technology and to converge medical data on platforms such as Metaverse. In addition, for this purpose, we are working on customizing the Linux Foundation's open source (hyperledger) to form NKCL's own platform.

 

◆How will the ‘NK Immunotherapy Center’ be operated?

The core of the NK Immunotherapy Center is checkup, diagnosis, and immune care. In the Immunotherapy center, NKCL's own NK immune checkup program was developed through NKCL's medical big data, and run through specialized immune cell activity and homeostasis testing. The checkup program is an impossible area without various clinical and medical data related to NK cells. When the checkup is completed with NKCL's unique technology, diagnostic data is released, and specialists in each field provide sufficient explanations to customers about immune care plans based on the data. Since then, a program called ‘Personal Immune Doctor’ is conducted through various NKCL’s unique immune care products and NKCL’s immune activation program.

◆ Finally, to the readers of Blockchain Today
In the future, only companies with practical technology, platforms, and accurate data will survive in the blockchain and related markets. To this end, NKCL is constantly striving to become a leader and moving forward. Thank you for your love and encouragement. It was a valuable time to gain a lot from the long interview with the Blockchain Today officials. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the CEO and related parties of Blockchain Today for making this precious time, and to the readers who made today's Blockchain Today. Starting with this interview, we dream of a day when we can meet our readers with Blockchain Today with better news as soon as possible. Thank you. Go for it, Blockchain Today!

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