[Edaily Reporter YU JIN-HEE ] World-renowned oncology experts who have rewritten global lung cancer treatment guidelines are voluntarily joining clinical trials for new anticancer drugs led by a South Korean biotech company one after another. These global authorities have been captivated solely by the data from a platform designed to overcome “pseudo-resistance”—which breaks down barriers in the surrounding environment rather than targeting genetic mutations in the cancer cells themselves—and have reached out to the company.

According to the pharmaceutical and biotech industry on the 15th, #PenetriumBio announced that at the “Global Clinical Development Symposium 2026” held in Seoul the previous day, Professor Marina Chiara Garasino of the University of Chicago—who established the standard of care for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer—expressed her intention to personally participate as an investigator in the U.S. Phase 2a clinical trial for the company’s pipeline candidate “Penitrium” for solid tumors.

Professor Garasino is a world-renowned cancer expert who served as the principal investigator (PI) for the landmark “KEYNOTE-189” clinical trial, which opened a new chapter in global lung cancer treatment by combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy.

According to the company, immediately after reviewing Penitrium’s mechanism of action, the concept of pseudo-resistance, preclinical results from patient-derived organoids and animal models, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Phase 2a clinical trial strategy at the symposium, Professor Garashino expressed his admiration with the exclamation “Amazing” and proactively proposed his participation to Professor Sandip Patel of the University of California, San Diego, who serves as the principal investigator (PI) for the U.S. clinical trial. He formally reiterated his intention to join the clinical trial during the official panel discussion that followed.

What immediately won over this world-renowned scholar was the precise, empirical data presented at the event. According to a study using lung cancer patient-derived organoids treated with the RAS-targeted anticancer drug Daraxsonrasib, when normal cancer cell survival was set at 100%, the survival rate dropped to 57.8% with the targeted therapy alone. However, when cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) formed around the tumor tissue, the cancer cell survival rate soared to 89.6% even with the same drug.

When the research team administered only Penitrium—which targets pseudo-resistance—in combination with the existing targeted anticancer drug without changing the latter, cancer cell survival plummeted to 7.5%. This not only demonstrated the reality of so-called “pseudo-resistance”—which occurs when physical and biological matrix barriers block drug delivery—but also provided numerical proof of a solution capable of overcoming it.

The wave of support from global experts extends beyond Professor Garashino. Professor Brian Henick, Director of the Early Clinical Program at Columbia University’s Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, also carefully reviewed the research data through Professor Patel and expressed his intention to participate in the U.S. Phase 2a trial. As leading clinicians from top U.S. cancer centers are rushing to join voluntarily, the team for Penitrium’s U.S. Phase 2a clinical trial has assembled a world-class lineup of experts.

Professor Patel, who is overseeing the U.S. clinical trials, stated in his keynote address, “The tumor stromal barrier is a key cause of treatment failure,” adding, “Penitrium’s preclinical results provide a strong scientific rationale for validating the efficacy of combination therapy in a real-world clinical setting.”

The “pseudo-resistance” theory, which began as an unfamiliar concept when it was first introduced in Korea in March 2025, has established itself as a core paradigm in modern oncology following presentations at international cancer conferences and the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC 2026). Analysts note that with the recent approval from the U.S. FDA to proceed with a Phase 2a clinical trial for solid tumors, the theory is now on track for practical validation toward becoming a global standard of care.

Jo Won-dong, Chairman of PenetriumBio, “The decision by world-renowned experts to voluntarily participate stems from their deep resonance with a mechanism-based approach that aims to overcome the clear limitations of existing treatments—which focus solely on attacking cancer cells—and to jointly break down the barriers of pseudo-resistance,” he said. “As this innovative treatment concept, which originated in Korea, has established itself as the mainstream in global oncology, we will definitively prove its efficacy in real-world patient settings alongside the world’s leading clinical teams.”