Hyundai Bio's Broad-Spectrum Antiviral 'Jepti'... "Also Effective Against RNA Virus Diseases"

Hyundai Bio announced on the 6th that the cell experiment results of Jepti (CP-COV03) confirmed its effectiveness in treating severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), an acute disease caused by the SFTS virus transmitted by the killer tick.

The company emphasized that Jepti is a broad-spectrum antiviral agent capable of treating RNA virus diseases with frequent mutations, such as COVID-19, dengue virus, and SFTS, which are difficult to develop treatments for.

Professor Choi Jun-yong's research team from Yonsei University College of Medicine's Department of Infectious Diseases presented the study results titled "Effect of CP-COV03 on SFTS Virus in a Cell Experiment Model" at the '2023 Autumn Academic Conference of the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases and the Korean Society of Antimicrobial Therapy' held on the 2nd, announcing that Jepti has therapeutic effects on SFTS.

The research team explained that the IC50, the concentration of niclosamide required to inhibit 50% of SFTS virus proliferation in cell experiments, was 0.125μM. This concentration is about half of the IC50 value of niclosamide against the COVID-19 virus (0.28μM).

SFTS is an infectious disease designated as a Class 3 disease by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), characterized by symptoms such as high fever, thrombocytopenia, vomiting, and leukopenia. In severe cases, neurological symptoms such as muscle tremors, confusion, and coma may occur. It mainly occurs in Asia, including Korea, China, Japan, Pakistan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, and Myanmar, and is known to be transmitted by ticks.

According to the KDCA's "SFTS Occurrence Status by Year," since the first SFTS death case in Korea in August 2012, a total of 1,686 patients have been reported from 2013 to October 2022. The average fatality rate was 18%, resulting in 304 deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) designated SFTS in 2017 as a disease requiring urgent development of treatments. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) named SFTS earlier this year as one of the most lethal threats in the Republic of Korea.

Despite its high fatality rate, there are no vaccines or treatments for SFTS. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases signed a joint research agreement with Moderna in the United States last year to develop an SFTS vaccine but has yet to develop one.

Jepti is a broad-spectrum antiviral agent with a new mechanism that removes viruses that have penetrated cells. Using its proprietary drug delivery system (DDS) patent technology, it has become the world's first to dramatically improve the low absorption rate and short blood concentration maintenance time of niclosamide.

The main ingredient of Jepti, niclosamide, has been confirmed through international academic journals to be effective against 32 types of viruses across 15 categories, including COVID-19, SARS, MERS, Ebola, dengue fever, and Zika virus. This is the first time niclosamide's efficacy against SFTS has been confirmed through this experiment.

With Jepti's efficacy against SFTS confirmed, the Yonsei University College of Medicine's Department of Infectious Diseases research team plans to apply for approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for a "researcher-initiated clinical trial of Jepti for SFTS."

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