In Four Months, Three Times on YouTube... Seo Jung-jin Personally Reveals the 'COVID Blueprint'

Starting March, Announcing Treatment Development Plans via YouTube
Directly Engaging from PPT Presentations to On-the-Spot Q&A

Seo Jung-jin, Chairman of Celltrion Group, is looking at the camera to conduct an online press conference on March 12. Source=Celltrion [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] 'Clinical trial start within 6 months (March 12) → Antibody treatment candidate secured (March 23) → Commercial production from September (July 20)'

Seo Jung-jin, Chairman of the Celltrion Group (photo), has presented specific treatment development schedules at key moments of the domestic novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) crisis. As the only way to end COVID-19 is considered to be the development of treatments and vaccines, Celltrion accelerated the development speed, shortening the antibody candidate securing period from 6 months to 3 weeks and advancing the start of Phase 1 clinical trials by 2 months.

◆ Three YouTube broadcasts... 'COVID-19 warrior' = According to the industry on the 21st, Chairman Seo has held three online press briefings since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Korea. Each lasted about an hour, during which Chairman Seo personally explained treatment development blueprints using slide materials and directly answered reporters' questions. A Celltrion official explained, "Chairman Seo conducted the briefings based on slides without a script," adding, "He also responded directly to on-site Q&A."

The first online briefing took place on March 12, when a mass infection occurred at a call center in Guro-gu, Seoul. At this event, Chairman Seo announced that treatment antibodies would be secured and clinical trials would begin within 6 months at the earliest. He said, "We will do our best to secure COVID-19 treatment antibodies and enter clinical trials in the shortest time possible," and, "We aim to start clinical trials administering to patients within 6 months if possible."

About two weeks later, on March 23, during the second online briefing, Chairman Seo announced that antibody treatment candidate substances had been secured. The stage of securing antibody treatment candidates usually takes 3 to 6 months in the treatment development process, but this was completed in just 3 weeks. He added, "Since the most critical first step is completed, we plan to administer antibody treatments to humans as early as mid-July, or at the latest by the end of July."

At the third online briefing held the day before, Chairman Seo announced that commercial production of the COVID-19 antibody treatment would begin in September. This followed the approval of Phase 1 clinical trials by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on the 17th. He also stated that if effective results come out from Phase 2 clinical trials, they will immediately proceed with emergency use approval procedures to accelerate the treatment's release.

◆ Antibody treatment may be administered as early as this year = In the 47-minute briefing held the day before, he revealed plans for the commercialization of the antibody treatment. Chairman Seo said, "This week, administration to Phase 1 clinical trial subjects will begin, marking the full-scale development of the antibody treatment," and, "To ensure stable release, some commercial production will start from September." The COVID-19 antibody treatment developed by Celltrion will begin first administration to 32 subjects this week. Phase 1 plans to involve about 50 subjects, Phase 2 about 200-300, and Phase 3 about 2,000-3,000 subjects.

The target commercialization time is the first half of next year, but if emergency use approval is granted, it could be administered to patients as early as the end of this year. Celltrion is preparing for this by starting production at the Songdo factory from September. Chairman Seo stated, "If the production capacity of (Songdo Plant 1) is insufficient, we are also considering using contract manufacturing organizations (CMO) together."

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