Confirmation of differences in therapeutic activity according to PNA chemical modification and arrangement, securing optimal design technology for each target... Used for AOC payload development
HLB Panagene (046210) disclosed research results confirming differences in therapeutic activity depending on the chemical structure of artificial nucleic acid (PNA) at an international conference held in the United States. Based on this, we plan to speed up the optimization of PNA payload, which is the core technology of the antibody-oligonucleotide conjugate (AOC) platform under development.
HLB Panazine announced on the 14th that it participated in the 22nd Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Conference (OTS 2026) held in Denver, Colorado, USA from the 11th and presented the results of research on chemical modification of PNA and RNA splicing regulation as a poster.
AOC is a technology that uses antibodies to deliver nucleic acid therapeutics to target cells. Antibodies serve to find specific cells, and the bound nucleic acids perform therapeutic action inside the cells. HLB Panagene is developing a platform that uses its own PNA technology as a nucleic acid payload for AOC.
In this study, we compared the effects of RNA splicing regulation by varying the chemical structure and modification site of PNA targeting genes related to Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and cancer. RNA splicing is a process of selecting and connecting the necessary parts of RNA that carries genetic information, and controlling this can affect the production of disease-related proteins.
As a result of the study, even if the same genetic information was targeted, the therapeutic activity varied depending on the type and arrangement of the chemical modification of the PNA. Some modified PNAs showed similar or higher activity to PMO (phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer), an existing nucleic acid therapeutic material. In cancer cell experiments, a specific modified PNA showed the highest cell death effect among the tested substances.
Differences in effective PNA structures were confirmed depending on the disease and target. This shows that the sequence and chemical structure of PNA should be individually designed according to the characteristics of each disease, rather than applying a specific structure to all targets.
HLB Panagene plans to use the PNA design technology and experimental data obtained in this study to develop the AOC platform. The plan is to combine PNA optimized for each target with antibodies to verify cell delivery performance and intracellular activity, and to discover follow-up AOC candidates.
According to the company, there was continued interest at the academic conference in improving the activity of PNA through chemical modification and the possibility of using it as a therapeutic payload, and technical inquiries regarding PNA synthesis and structural analysis were also conducted.
An HLB Panagine official said, "In order to increase the therapeutic effect of AOC, the performance of the payload that carries out the actual therapeutic effect after being delivered to the target cells is important." He added, "Based on the PNA design technology and data accumulated through this research, we will develop the optimal PNA payload for each target and connect this to the competitiveness of the AOC platform."
