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The Korea Herald
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THE INVESTOR
March 29, 2024

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[INTERVIEW] PCL CEO pledges turnaround in 2017 with multiple deals

  • PUBLISHED :February 06, 2017 - 18:16
  • UPDATED :February 06, 2017 - 18:21
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[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s immunodiagnostics firm PCL said its loss-making years have come to an end as it has now signed a series of deals with global biotechnology firms, with more on the horizon this year.

“I see a high possibility that the company will meet this year’s revenue target of 9.5 billion won (US$8.34 million), given that we have already inked several contracts in January,” PCL Chief Executive Kim So-youn said in an interview with The Investor on Feb. 3. 


PCL CEO Kim So-youn



Related: 
[EXCLUSIVE]
PCL in talks with Novartis to develop companion diagnostics 


The company, which reported 2.2 billion won (US$1.94 million) in revenue and operating loss of 600 million won in 2016, will be listed on South Korea’s tech-laden KOSDAQ market this month with an indicative price range of 10,500 won to 13,000 won.

“It may be the cheapest price to buy the company’s stake as many favorable events are expected this year,” the CEO said.

Kim’s confidence in the turnaround plan comes from the company’s multiplex blood testing kit called Hi3-1, the first product in the world to be able to detect HIV and hepatitis C simultaneously, which obtained Europe’s CE marking in August last year.

“PCL has secured the core technology three years ahead of its competitors by achieving the prime grade of CE in vitro diagnostic certification as other rivals have not even started clinical trials of such products,” the PCL founder and a biology professor said.

Since the venture company received the certification, it has struck five contracts.

The company begun selling Hi3-1 to France’s Cerba and Germany’s Scienion and signed an memorandum of understanding with Brazilian firm REM which holds 30 percent market share in the country’s blood-screening market.

“The CE mark also enables us to enter countries like Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran which are our next targets,” Kim said. Multiplex technology for immunodiagnostics has been developed by only two or three companies in the world -- including US Luminex and PCL -- who have succeeded to commercialize the technology.

The biggest competitive edge PCL has is its proprietary technology in immobilizing disease biomarkers, which is key in vitro diagnostics.

The technology called SG Cap, a three-dimensional sol-gel capturing system and chip-based multiplex, enables concurrent detection of multiple diseases with high sensitivity and specificity at a low cost. “Ultimately, diagnosis is about cutting costs,” the CEO said.

By using PCL’s SG Cap platform, blood banks and biotechnology, companies can use significantly less amount of biomarkers like protein and DNA which take a large part of the cost of diagnostics as the 3-D matrix immobilize 100 times more biomarkers than 2-D surfaces and diverse size of pores.

While keeping its business focus on blood diagnostics to win orders from blood donor centers and blood banks at home and overseas, the company also seeks to expand its platform service business to develop customized multiplex in vitro diagnostics products for global companies.

“The platform service business makes high profit margins. We plan to increase revenue from the service up to 30 percent of our total sales by offering customized kit production service, reagent sales and analysis services to customers,” she said.

As a part of such efforts, PCL finalized a deal worth 10 billion won to supply multiplex testing kits to China’s Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostic in February.
 
Currently, it is also developing multiple flu and cancer diagnosis kits and taking steps to enter the point-of-care testing market. 

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)

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