Teragen Etex "Discovering COVID-19 Drug Candidates with AI"

Demonstration scene of Theragen Etex's binding prediction technology used in the discovery of COVID-19 therapeutic candidate substances

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dae-yeol] Theragen Etex announced on the 17th that it has discovered candidate substances for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) treatment by utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) drug development platform technology and genome analysis technology.

The company stated that it recently conducted drug repositioning screening research targeting 1,880 FDA-approved drugs in the United States and identified five candidate substances for treatment. Unlike previous similar studies that mainly used the protein structures of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) viruses, the company explained that it increased accuracy and the likelihood of development success by performing its own COVID-19 genome sequencing.

Among the initially acquired candidate substances, drugs currently used by frontline medical staff as treatments, such as chloroquine, remdesivir, ribavirin, and favipiravir, ranked highly. The final candidate substances included respiratory disease treatments and cardiovascular disease treatments among the top ranks. The company anticipated that "respiratory disease treatments can be expected to have antiviral effects as well as symptom relief, and cardiovascular disease treatments could be applied to patients with underlying cardiovascular conditions."

Prior to this research, Theragen Etex analyzed the mechanism of action of the coronavirus and selected two protein targets. They plan to conduct drug efficacy tests with reputable research institutions on the candidate substances obtained this time, while also discovering additional candidate substances among 12 other target proteins. For verified drugs, they intend to apply for clinical trial approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety aiming for early authorization.

Oh Yong-ho, head of the new drug development center at Theragen Etex, said, "While actively pursuing the development of a COVID-19 treatment that can be commercialized early, we will establish our own genome database for viral infectious diseases to utilize it for the development of treatments for other viruses in the future."

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