# Aptamer Sciences

Source: https://onco.cc/companies/aptamer-sciences/  
OnCo record `aptamer-sciences` (Company). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Aptamer Sciences builds medicines from aptamers, short strands of DNA that fold into shapes able to grip a protein on cancer cells, and uses them to carry chemotherapy into tumours. Its lead medicine, AST-201, targets liver and lung cancers that carry the GPC3 protein and is in a first human trial; it also sells a blood test to help assess lung nodules.

## Summary

Aptamer Sciences Inc., now trading as CHOOLIP & SCIENCE, is a KOSDAQ-listed company (291650) headquartered in Pangyo Seven Venture Valley, Bundang-gu, Seongnam, South Korea, with a GMP facility at POSTECH in Pohang. It was established in April 2011 as a POSTECH spin-off and listed on KOSDAQ in September 2020, according to the company. Its ApDC (aptamer-drug conjugate) platform builds the payload into the aptamer sequence: AST-201 is a GPC3-binding DNA aptamer carrying gemcitabine, released inside the cell as gemcitabine monophosphate. The company filed the AST-201 IND with Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on 12 March 2024 and received approval in October 2024; the phase 1 study in GPC3-positive advanced solid tumours, including hepatocellular carcinoma and non-small cell lung cancer, runs at CHA Bundang Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center, Severance Hospital and the National Cancer Center Korea (NCT06687941). The company reports a clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with Merck (MSD) for AST-201 with pembrolizumab and a US composition-of-matter patent for AST-201. It also markets AptoDetect-Lung, an aptamer-based multi-marker blood test used in assessing lung nodules. Its first registered cancer trial, NCT06687941, was posted on ClinicalTrials.gov in November 2024.

## Fields

- Kind: Company
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Also known as: Choolip & Science; CHOOLIP & SCIENCE Inc
- HQ: Seongnam
- Type: biotech
- Website: https://www.aptsci.com/en/
- Ticker: 291650.KQ

## Notes

- Read on 29 October 2026: aptsci.com English about, history and contact pages, the March 2024 IND filing release and the Korean home page news item on the AST-201 US patent and the MSD agreement (Korean text; the agreement was described as signed in April without the year being restated).
-  OnCo has no aptamer technology record; the ligand-drug conjugate record (peptide-drug-conjugate) is the nearest and is the only one linked. AptoDetect-Lung was not linked to a test record.
- Trial facts from the ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT06687941, read on 29 October 2026.

## Sources

- Official website: https://www.aptsci.com/en/
- Company history: https://www.aptsci.com/en/company/history.php
- ClinicalTrials.gov: phase 1 trial of AST-201 in GPC3-positive solid tumours (NCT06687941): https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06687941
- AST-201 IND filing release, March 2024: https://www.aptsci.com/en/pr/news.php?bgu=view&idx=291

## Connected records

- cancers: [Hepatocellular carcinoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/hcc/), [Non-small-cell lung cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/nsclc/)
- fronts: [Diagnostics & Biomarkers](https://onco.cc/fronts/diagnostics/), [Targeted Therapy](https://onco.cc/fronts/targeted-therapy/)
- technologies: [Peptide-drug & small-molecule-drug conjugates](https://onco.cc/technologies/peptide-drug-conjugate/)
- targets: [Glypican-3](https://onco.cc/targets/gpc3/)

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