Yuhan Corporation-AppClon, Joint Development of COVID-19 Antibody Therapeutics

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Yuhan Corporation announced on the 27th that it has been jointly developing an antibody treatment for COVID-19 with the antibody therapy specialist company Abclon since May.

According to Yuhan Corporation, Abclon, which began discovering COVID-19 antibody treatments in February, identified 20 initial antibody candidate substances that completely block the binding between the human ACE2 protein and the virus spike protein, and succeeded in deriving the final antibody drug candidate through an optimization process.

The antibody demonstrated equivalent neutralizing efficacy not only against the S-type variant prevalent in Asia but also against the G-type variant of the COVID-19 virus circulating in the United States, Europe, and recently in Korea. The final neutralizing antibody drug candidate can neutralize variant COVID-19 viruses, enabling active response to the virus's rapid mutations.

Based on its extensive domestic and international clinical development capabilities and commercialization expertise accumulated over many years, Yuhan Corporation plans to take the lead in preclinical evaluation, clinical trial approval applications, and the design and execution of domestic and international clinical trials for Abclon's COVID-19 neutralizing antibody treatment.

The two companies are currently focusing all efforts on rapid production cell line development and the production of non-clinical and clinical samples.

Lee Jung-hee, CEO of Yuhan Corporation, stated, "We will do our best to contribute to the improvement of global health amid worldwide crises through the rapid and differentiated development of treatments."

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