[Featured Stock] Newgilab Surges on Mention of COVID-19 Drug 'Nafamostat'... Highlighted for Ministry of Science and ICT Supported Clinical Trials

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] NewG Lab is surging. It appears to be influenced by the mention of the pancreatitis treatment drug 'Nafamostat' as a more potent drug than Remdesivir, which is gaining attention as a promising candidate for the treatment of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) by domestic researchers.

As of 1:45 PM on the 14th, NewG Lab was trading at 15,100 KRW, up 21.29% (2,650 KRW) compared to the previous trading day.

The Korea Pasteur Institute published on the 13th (Korean time) the results of a 'drug repositioning' study to find drugs among those already approved or in development that could be applied to treat COVID-19 patients, on the international biological archive 'bioRxiv', making it public worldwide. This drug received clinical trial approval from the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety last month.

The research results released by the Korea Pasteur Institute on March 22 used Vero cells, i.e., animal cells, but this time, results were obtained using Calu-3, human lung cells. The research team explained in their paper, "The approximately 6,000-fold reduction of the virus when Nafamostat was applied to Calu-3 cells infected with COVID-19 is likely due to the dominant role of TMPRSS2-dependent viral entry in Calu-3 human lung epithelial cells." They further stated, "This indicates that Nafamostat is about 600 times more potent than Remdesivir in Calu-3 cells."

On the 12th, NewG Lab announced that it will participate as a joint research company in a drug repositioning clinical trial for COVID-19 treatment based on Nafamostat, a pancreatitis treatment drug.

This clinical trial will be funded by a research grant jointly provided by the Ministry of Science and ICT's 'Emergency Research Project for National Life Safety' and NewG Lab, among others. The research will be conducted in a format where Professor In-gyu Bae's infectious diseases team at Gyeongsang National University Hospital will take overall responsibility, and participating companies including NewG Lab will divide and handle detailed tasks.

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