On the 10th, Olix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the appointment of Dr. Min Ji-young as its new Executive Vice President (EEVP) and Chief Development Officer (CDO).
Senior Vice President Min has spent approximately 20 years working on the development of RNAi and nucleic acid therapeutics at organizations including the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Korea Pasteur Institute (IPK), and the global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). She has firsthand experience across the entire new drug development process, including target identification, preclinical and translational research, chemical, manufacturing, and control (CMC), global Phase 1–3 clinical trials, and regulatory strategy.
At GSK, he served as Head of Global Development, Head of Clinical R&D, and Lead of the New Drug Discovery Project. Leading a global development team comprising non-clinical, translational research, CMC, clinical, regulatory, and external partners, he oversaw key decision-making at every stage—from candidate identification to clinical entry, follow-up clinical trials, and regulatory responses.
In particular, he possesses experience in developing various nucleic acid therapeutics platforms, including GalNAc-based liver-targeted delivery, delivery to extrahepatic tissues using lipid conjugates, and delivery to the central nervous system (CNS) and skin. The company explained that this appointment holds significant strategic relevance, given that Olix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is expanding the scope of its RNAi platform beyond the liver to include adipose tissue, skin, the eye, and the central nervous system.
Senior Vice President Min will oversee the formulation and execution of global development strategies for Olix Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s key pipelines. He will be responsible for strategic decision-making throughout the entire new drug development process, including securing key data during the preclinical phase, submitting Investigational New Drug (IND) applications, establishing CMC development and manufacturing systems, clinical trial design and operations, biomarker and dosing strategies, liaising with global regulatory agencies, and managing external partners and CROs.
He will also coordinate development strategies between the Korean and U.S. organizations and enhance collaboration across the research, preclinical, CMC, clinical, and regulatory departments. The goal is to build a data package of sufficient quality that allows global pharmaceutical companies to continue development after technology transfer, incorporating the data and potential risks required from the early research stages through subsequent clinical trials and the approval process.
Senior Vice President Min stated, “Olix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. possesses both a proprietary RNAi platform capable of targeting various organisms and a pipeline of candidates in clinical and pre-clinical stages, giving it high potential in global new drug development.” She added, “Based on the experience accumulated throughout the entire new drug development process, I will establish development strategies that consider subsequent clinical and regulatory requirements from the early stages onward, and contribute to enhancing the likelihood of success for key pipeline candidates and our competitiveness in global partnering.”
Lee Dong-ki, CEO of Olix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., remarked, “Senior Vice President Min Ji-young is a development expert with experience spanning preclinical studies, CMC, global clinical trials, and regulatory affairs in the fields of RNAi and nucleic acid therapeutics.” He continued, “Because she understands the entire new drug development process, she is uniquely positioned to accurately assess what needs to be prepared during the early development stages to increase the likelihood of success in subsequent development and enhance the value of technology transfer.”
He added, “Through this appointment, we will incorporate the development standards and requirements of global pharmaceutical companies from the early stages of research, further enhance the development maturity of the OASIS platform and our key pipelines, and continuously expand opportunities for technology transfer and global partnerships.”
Meanwhile, Olix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is currently advancing its key pipeline candidates into clinical trials while concurrently pursuing subsequent clinical development. OLX702A, a treatment for MASH and obesity, has completed a Phase 1 clinical trial in Australia and is expected to receive the clinical trial results report in the second half of this year. OLX104C, a treatment for hair loss, is in the final stages of a Phase 1b clinical trial in Australia.
OLX301A, a treatment for age-related macular degeneration, is preparing to enter a multinational, multi-center Phase 2a clinical trial in the second half of this year targeting patients with geographic atrophy (GA). OLX501A, an ALK7-targeted obesity treatment, is advancing through preclinical studies and preparing for clinical trials with the goal of submitting an IND application for a Phase 1 clinical trial in the first half of next year.
