HONG KONG - With a corporate valuation of $1.04 billion, the South Korean biosimilar company Aprogen Inc. has become the country’s first biotech “unicorn,” according to U.S. market research firm CB Insights. Korea now ranks fifth, tied with Germany, in terms of the number of unicorns, with total of 11 unicorns, a term used to describe private ventures with $1 billion-plus valuations. The U.S has a total of 210 unicorns, followed by China with 102, the U.K. with 22 and India with 18.

HONG KONG - South Korean biopharmaceutical company Quratis Inc. and Indonesia’s state-run company, Bio Farma PT, have entered a term sheet agreement to develop and commercialize Quratis’ tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, QTP-101, for adults and adolescents.

HONG KONG –Nkmax America Inc., of Santa Ana, Calif., a natural killer (NK) cell-based therapy developer, has secured $11 million in a seed funding round. It is the company’s first funding round in the U.S. capital market. The company is owned by South Korean biotech firm Nkmax Co. Ltd. based in Seongnam.

HONG KONG - With a corporate valuation of $1.04 billion, the South Korean biosimilar company Aprogen Inc. has become the country’s first biotech “unicorn,” according to U.S. market research firm CB Insights. Korea now ranks fifth, tied with Germany, in terms of the number of unicorns, with total of 11 unicorns, a term used to describe private ventures with $1 billion-plus valuations.

HONG KONG – Matricelf Ltd., an Israeli medical 3D printing company based in Tel Aviv, has won a SEED AWARD and the ¥1 million (US$143,000) that goes with the prize. The Global Final of the SEED AWARD 2019 was held in Shenzhen, China. The organizer Seedland Group, China’s leading real estate company promoting technology innovation, said that Matricelf is working toward one day being able to manufacture the world’s first functional 3D printed human heart.

HONG KONG - South Korean biopharmaceutical company Quratis Inc. and Indonesia’s state-run company, Bio Farma PT, have entered a term sheet agreement to develop and commercialize Quratis’ tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, QTP-101, for adults and adolescents. The total amount of the deal is around ₩1.2 trillion (US$1.1 billion), according to the Seoul-based company.

HONG KONG – South Korea’s Avixgen Inc., which recently secured ₩10.6 billion (US$9 million) in pre-IPO investment and has raised total funding of ₩27 billion since its series A in 2015, plans to use funds to further develop drug platform technologies and therapeutics for virus-causing diseases such as HIV-1/AIDS.

HONG KONG – Negev-based Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and Beersheba-based Soroka Medical Center in Israel, working with the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati (UC), have developed a technology for unblocking and removing secretions from airways to to treat patients with diseases affecting the respiratory tract.