{"entity":{"id":"aptamer-sciences","kind":"company","name":"Aptamer Sciences","aka":["Choolip & Science","CHOOLIP & SCIENCE Inc"],"tldr":"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.","asOf":"2026-10-29","links":[{"label":"Official website","url":"https://www.aptsci.com/en/"},{"label":"Company history","url":"https://www.aptsci.com/en/company/history.php"},{"label":"ClinicalTrials.gov: phase 1 trial of AST-201 in GPC3-positive solid tumours (NCT06687941)","url":"https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06687941"},{"label":"AST-201 IND filing release, March 2024","url":"https://www.aptsci.com/en/pr/news.php?bgu=view&idx=291"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["hcc","nsclc"],"sections":["targeted-therapy","diagnostics"],"technologies":["peptide-drug-conjugate"],"targets":["gpc3"],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"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."],"hq":"Seongnam","country":"KR","companyType":"biotech","website":"https://www.aptsci.com/en/","ticker":"291650.KQ","founded":2011,"stage":"public","investors":[],"funding":[]},"route":"/companies/aptamer-sciences/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"hcc","kind":"cancer","name":"Hepatocellular carcinoma","route":"/cancers/hcc/"},{"id":"nsclc","kind":"cancer","name":"Non-small-cell lung cancer","route":"/cancers/nsclc/"}],"section":[{"id":"diagnostics","kind":"section","name":"Diagnostics & Biomarkers","route":"/fronts/diagnostics/"},{"id":"targeted-therapy","kind":"section","name":"Targeted Therapy","route":"/fronts/targeted-therapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"peptide-drug-conjugate","kind":"technology","name":"Peptide-drug & small-molecule-drug conjugates","route":"/technologies/peptide-drug-conjugate/"}],"target":[{"id":"gpc3","kind":"target","name":"Glypican-3","route":"/targets/gpc3/"}]}}