CDC Collaborates with Celltrion and SK Bioscience on COVID-19 Therapeutics and Vaccine Development

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Health authorities are joining hands with Celltrion and SK Bioscience to develop antibody therapeutics and preventive vaccines for the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

The National Institute of Health under the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on the 26th that it selected Celltrion and SK Bioscience as partners for antibody therapeutic and vaccine development through an emergency research project call for COVID-19 response.

The National Institute of Health explained, "Companies with their own research capabilities, experience in domestic and international clinical trials and approvals, and established mass production manufacturing facilities were selected."

Earlier, the National Institute of Health secured an additional budget of 4 billion KRW for the production of COVID-19 therapeutic substances and clinical trial research.

The National Institute of Health will collaborate with Celltrion to develop monoclonal antibody therapeutics. Monoclonal antibody therapeutics analyze and evaluate antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to select only those antibodies that can neutralize the virus for use as treatments.

With SK Bioscience, the institute will promote the development of preventive vaccines using synthetic antigen (subunit) technology. Synthetic antigen vaccines are manufactured by synthesizing only parts of the pathogen's proteins (antigens) that can induce an immune response through genetic recombination technology, which reduces the risk of infection and enhances safety.

Through this research, the National Institute of Health will conduct candidate substance development and efficacy evaluation, and if candidate substances with proven efficacy are selected, it will also support non-clinical and clinical trials. To this end, the Vaccine Practical Technology Development Project Group (2020?2029) will be formed, utilizing a 2020 research budget of 11.95 billion KRW.

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