JW Pharmaceutical has acquired a patent for its hair loss treatment from the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the company said on Thursday.

The patent aims to safeguard JW0061’s novel heterocyclic derivatives alongside its salts, stereoisomers, and compositions.

With this patent from KIPO, JW Pharmaceutical finalized patent registrations for JW0061 across seven countries, including Russia, Australia, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, China, and South Korea. patent examinations are currently ongoing in five other regions, including the United States, Europe, and Canada.

The company‘s new hair loss solution is a novel drug candidate that activates the Wingless-related integration site (Wnt) signaling pathway within skin and hair follicle stem cells, thus stimulating follicular proliferation and promoting hair regeneration. The Wnt signaling pathway plays a pivotal role in both skin development and hair follicle formation during embryonic development by facilitating the differentiation of skin stem cells into hair follicles. For its part, JW0061 directly binds to the GFRA1 protein in hair follicle cells, thus activating the Wnt pathway. JW Pharmaceutical discovered this drug candidate via the company’s own artificial intelligence (AI)-based data science platform, the company explained.

JW0061 demonstrated superior efficacy in hair growth and hair follicle regeneration compared to animal control groups and based on this promising preclinical research, the company aims to begin Phase 1 clinical trials later in 2024. JW Pharmaceutical is currently in the process of developing clinical-grade drugs after completing toxicity evaluations at overseas institutions. “The patent for JW0061 is recognized as a fundamental technology in the global market,” the company affirmed.

By Kim Jee-hee and Chang Iou-chung

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