Celltrion’s Corona 19 antibody treatment’Rekironaju’. Celltrion provided
On the 11th, the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, the Central Defense Response Headquarters (Bang Dae-bon) announced the results of the efficacy evaluation of Celltrion’s novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19, Corona 19) antibody treatment’Rekironaju’. As an evaluation of the efficacy of the mutant virus spreading in the UK and South Africa, it was found that Rekyrona was effective against the mutant virus in the UK, but little effect against the mutant virus in South Africa.
Antibody therapy is a biopharmaceutical used as a treatment by separating only antibodies formed in the blood of patients cured of Corona 19. An antibody isolated to bind only to the antigen of the virus is called a’monoclonal antibody (monoclonal antibody)’, which is used alone or in combination. Antibodies are immune proteins that bind to structures that play an important role in viral invasion or proliferation, and they surround major regions of the virus, preventing their function from functioning and reducing toxicity.
Rekirona state was jointly researched and developed by Celltrion and National Institutes of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to an analysis of the National Institutes of Health last year, it was found that Rekkirona has neutralizing ability against six mutant virus genotypes identified in Korea. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 5th of this month that it will decide to authorize Rekirona on the condition of submitting the results of a phase 3 clinical trial.
The results are an evaluation of the efficacy of Rekkirona against mutant viruses in the UK and South Africa. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases mixed mutant viruses with a sieve and infected host cells to test the degree to which antibodies inhibit the virus.
As a result, Rekironaju showed a’neutralizing effect’, neutralizing the virus by removing the toxicity of the virus that invaded the body by the British mutant virus. On the other hand, there was almost no neutralizing effect on the mutant virus spreading in South Africa. Based on the results, Bang Dae-bon recommended that the use of domestic antibody treatments be restricted to those with confirmed South African mutant virus.
Celltrion announced in a separate press release on the same day after the announcement of Bang Dae-bon that “it has begun developing a’cocktail treatment’ that can comprehensively respond to the mutant virus. Cocktail treatment is a method of separating thousands of antibodies from patients cured of COVID-19 and then administering them together.
Celltrion said, “At the same time as the development of Leckirona, we had a pool of potential cocktail candidate antibodies composed of a total of 38 neutralizing antibodies.” Of these, candidate antibody No. 32 showed neutralizing ability against both British and South African mutant viruses. Celltrion plans to develop a new’variant customized cocktail treatment’ using candidate antibody No. 32 with the aim of completing clinical trials within the next six months.