[SINGAPORE] After watching her family members go through painful treatment methods to deal with their cancer diagnoses, Lynnet Koh turned to cell therapy to find new ways to cure the debilitating disease.
“Unlike other areas in medicine, which primarily treat side effects of the disease and extend life by a few months, I really wanted to cure patients without all the toxic side effects,” she said.
Koh is bullish on the potential of stem cells, which has a growing market. Research house Grandview Research placed the global stem cell market at US$15.1 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.4 per cent from 2025 to 2030.
The cell delivery platform technology, as Koh calls it, increases the likelihood of the cell reaching the diseased organ. “What it does is it serves as a GPS (global positioning system) of sorts,” she said. “It gets more of the medicine to where it is needed – it multiplies the efficacy.”
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She raised stem cells from cord blood as an example, noting that the extracted amount of stem cells in cord-blood units is usually only enough to treat children weighing up to 26 kg.
“(Our technology) expands the use of one unit of cord blood from a child to an adult,” she said.
Koh estimates that around US$85 million has gone into the company, including funds from Japanese pharmaceutical company Kyowa Hakko Kirin and Spanish cord blood bank VidaCord, an initial US$10 million investment from investors such as Koh herself, and over US$60 million in medical and scientific awards.
Stem cell safety
Increasing the safety profile of the stem cells is also important to TargaZyme’s multiplier technology, which is infused into patients as a drug.
Cancer patients generally undergo intense chemotherapy that kills off both good and bad cells, then stem cell transplantation to “bring (the patients) back to life”, said Koh.
At times, patients may not survive the full process, as side effects may occur due to a largely weakened immune system.
“Our drug has been shown to improve the safety in patients – for example, in our trials, we saw a 22 per cent (increase) in post-transplant patient survival, which is very rare and exciting,” she said. For instance, the drug was able to reduce the onset of fungal and viral infections in patients.
TargaZyme’s technology is currently in phase three of development, the stage before the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) marketing approval.
“The drug has been used in a lot of patients, and it has proven safe and efficacious,” she noted.
The company is now gearing up to seek FDA’s marketing approval, with the aim of generating commercial revenues.
It is raising a Series B round to further develop its Phase 3 asset for patients who require hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation, as well as patients with late-stage and serious autoimmune diseases. It is targeting to go to market by the end of 2027.
While Koh believes that the US is the best place for innovation, she is interested in bringing the technology back to Singapore, where it can benefit patients here. TargaZyme is in talks with cord-blood banks in Asia to select the best partner to use with its technology and drive major revenues, said Koh.
The Republic could also be the location of its regional headquarters, or a place for TargaZyme to pursue a secondary listing if it goes public, she said.
“Right now we are in conversations with several exchanges and (it’s) something that we’re open to consider this calendar year,” she added.
