Minister Choi Ki-young: "All-Out Effort to Secure COVID-19 Therapeutics"

Minister Choi Ki-young, who recently visited Seegene, a company developing COVID-19 diagnostic kits, is receiving an explanation from a researcher.

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Junho] Choi Ki-young, Minister of Science and ICT, visited the Korea Pasteur Institute, where drug repurposing research for the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) is in full swing, on the 28th. At the site, he said, "Drug repurposing research for the rapid securing of treatments is the public's expectation of science and technology." He added, "The Ministry of Science and ICT will do its best to ensure that related organizations organically cooperate and pool their capabilities so that the research can be successfully conducted for COVID-19 drug repurposing."

The Korea Pasteur Institute is a research institute equipped with a biosafety facility (BSL3 level) that allows treatment research without infection by the COVID-19 virus. Here, drug repurposing research is being promoted to find drugs effective against COVID-19 among those approved by the U.S. FDA and proven to be safe. In addition to this institute, the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, and the National Mouse Phenotyping Consortium are collaborating for drug repurposing.

Drug repurposing work for COVID-19 response refers to identifying drugs among existing marketed drugs that are effective for COVID-19 treatment and enabling their practical use in treatment. Drugs expected to be effective among existing drugs are selected, and drug efficacy is evaluated at the cellular level. Then, drug efficacy test data are provided to medical sites, and experiments on animal models are conducted to secure reliability.

In the future, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to provide drug repurposing research results to clinical doctors so that they can be used in COVID-19 medical sites.

Meanwhile, Minister Choi listened to the current research status at the site and discussed various measures for rapid and efficient research in the future.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.