Celltrion said that it has presented the phase 3 clinical trial results of Yuflyma, a new biosimilar of Abbvie's blockbuster drug, Humira (Ingredient: Adalimumab), during the 2021 European Congress of Rheumatology.The company conducted the phase 3 clinical trials for 52 weeks and evaluated the overa
Various types of Covid-19 vaccines, including mRNA vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have obtained approval or are being studied actively.In Korea, companies such as Genexine and GeneOne Life Science are working on covid-19 DNA vaccines.CK-Exogene is a rare local biotech firm trying out new te
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s latest approval of the Covid-19 antibody drug candidate VIR-7831 (Ingredient: sotrovimab) codeveloped by GSK and Vir Biotechnology will likely bring about different results on Korean drugmakers, industry watchers said.The FDA granted emergency use authorizatio
In the wake of the agreement between Samsung Biologics and Moderna on manufacturing mRNA Covid-19 shots on Saturday, attention is drawn to Korean pharmaceutical companies’ endeavors to develop mRNA vaccine technology.Under the accord, Samsung Biologics will fill, label, and package hundreds of milli
The recent news about Korean companies, including Hanmi Science, forming a consortium to manufacture Covid-19 mRNA vaccines drew investors’ attention to some local pharmaceutical and biotech companies.Industry officials said on Wednesday that the government held a meeting to push for the development
Local researchers said they have found why taking risperidone, an atypical antipsychotic drug, leads to weight gain.The study was the first to identify the cause of weight gain at the level of nerve cells and molecules, they said. In the past, doing so was impossible because obesity found in patient
ImmuneMed is accelerating efforts to develop hzVSF-v13, an investigational antiviral treatment for chronic hepatitis B, and pushing to go public on Kosdaq this year.Separately, the biotech firm has been working on hzVSF-v13 as a Covid-19 treatment. The company’s start of the drug development for chr
Huons may give up on the development of HU024, a new biologic drug for dry eye treatment, industry watchers speculated.On Thursday, Huons filed a public disclosure saying it would withdraw its plan for the local phase-2 clinical trial of HU024 but did not elaborate clearly. Observers said it might s
Two Korean pharmaceutical companies are fiercely competing to receive regulatory approval for their biosimilar drugs of Lucentis (ingredient: ranibizumab), a macular degeneration medicine.Chong Kun Dang and Samsung Bioepis have gone all out to develop the drug and are about to commercialize their pr
Tego Science, a company specializing in cell therapy, said Monday that it has won the U.S. patent for a chemokine-based component that improves skin.The company plans to conduct trials to obtain indications for treating specific skin injuries with the drug candidate that uses chemokine, an active in
Shares of two Korean biotech companies rose on the news that the developer of the Russian Covid-19 vaccine CoviVac applied to the World Health Organization for prequalification of the vaccine.The WHO prequalification is likely to allow the vaccine to be supplied to developing countries through the C
Namyang Dairy Chairman Hong Won-sik announced his resignation on Tuesday, 22 days after the controversy broke out over the company’s advertisement that its bottled yogurt product could reduce the Covid-19 virus nearly 80 percent.Chairman Hong said he would take responsibility for all the turmoil and
It may not have been a coincidence that Celltrion revised a press release about winning conditional approval for a Covid-19 home test kit on Monday when the nation lifted the 13-month ban on short-selling on the stock market.Celltrion said it never intended the confusion, and it made just a simple m
As the patent expiration is drawing near for the macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema therapy, Eyelea, Korean drugmakers, including Samsung Bioepis, Celltrion, Alteogen, and Samchundang Pharm, are speeding developing its biosimilars.The product patent of Eyelea, jointly developed by Regen
Eutilex said Wednesday that it obtained a patent for the malignancy variant receptor (MVR) CAR-T (chimeric-antigen receptor T) therapy in the United States.The company’s CAR-T cell therapy for MVR targets overexpressed HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen)-DR in tumors.Existing CD19 CAR-T therapy kills tumo
With advanced biopharmaceuticals in the limelight, Korean companies are rushing to enter the CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization) market to produce high-tech biopharmaceuticals such as gene and cell therapies.The Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization (KoreaBIO) said in a re
Precision medicine companies have started to expand direct-to-consumer genetic testing services. DTC genetic tests allow consumers to directly request institutions to run genetic testing online or through outlets without visiting a hospital.Currently, DTC genetic tests are limited to those for welln
The global regenerative medicine industry achieved rapid growth last year despite challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, an industry report said.The spiking demand for R&D and production for cell-based immunotherapies, gene therapies, and cell treatments is likely to give expanded roles to contr
Thelma Therapeutics is on the verge of being delisted from the main bourse Kospi, and this might hurt its plan to manufacture CoviVac, a Russian Covid-19 vaccine, in a CMO deal, observers said.On Tuesday, the Korea Exchange said that Thelma Therapeutics met the criteria to be delisted from the stock
SK Bioscience said it would temporarily discontinue production of SKYCellflu, an influenza vaccine, to focus on manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines.Industry sources said Monday that SK Bioscience would not manufacture the flu vaccine SKYCellflu this year. The company said the move was to allocate its fu