Celltrion "Accelerating Development of Inhalation Treatment to Combat COVID-19 Variants"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jung] Celltrion announced on the 29th that it is accelerating the development of a follow-up project, the ‘cocktail’ inhalation treatment, to actively respond to various COVID-19 variant viruses that could potentially become dominant strains in the future.

Celltrion is developing an inhalation antibody treatment considering convenience and cost-effectiveness to diversify its antibody treatment platform. From the cocktail candidate antibody pool established since the early pandemic, the candidate antibody CT-P63, which shows the best response to variant viruses, has been selected, and a separate global Phase 1 clinical trial is expected to be completed within this year.

Celltrion recently completed patient administration in the Phase 1 clinical trial of CT-P63 and plans to secure related trial data by December, after which it will pursue combining it with the inhalation treatment currently under simultaneous development.

A company official stated, "From the early stages of development, the plan was to develop the inhalation form as a cocktail to respond more effectively to variant viruses," adding, "Recent structural analysis confirmed that the viral antigen binding site of CT-P63 does not overlap with the mutation sites of the Omicron variant, which is expected to spread currently, so it is anticipated to exhibit strong neutralizing ability against Omicron as well."

The inhalation form has a ‘trapping’ mechanism whereby the inhaled antibodies adhere to the respiratory mucosa and filter viruses entering through the respiratory tract, in addition to the main antibody action mechanism of neutralizing the virus by binding to the spike protein antigen site. Furthermore, the inhalation form offers dosing convenience and is reported to have a superior antibody delivery rate through the lungs compared to intravenous injection. Celltrion is developing this based on the patent license of its joint developer, the U.S. biotech company Inhalon Biopharma.

Celltrion has proven through various clinical evidence, including animal efficacy, that its antibody treatment ‘Rekkirona’ is effective against the Delta variant, which has become the dominant strain worldwide including Korea, and recently obtained formal marketing authorization from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

A Celltrion official said, "While focusing on domestic and international supply of Rekkirona, which has confirmed efficacy against the Delta variant, we are closely monitoring the spread of various newly emerging variants such as Omicron," and added, "We will do our best to contribute to preventing the global spread of COVID-19 by accelerating the development of not only Rekkirona, whose first phase of development is complete, but also the cocktail inhalation treatment currently in the second phase of development."

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