Celltrion said its Covid-19 treatment Regkirona Inj. (ingredient: regdanvimab) showed a weak neutralizing effect against the South Africa variant of the Covid-19 virus.

The company recently requested the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s National Institute of Health to test Regkirona’s virus-neutralizing ability.

Researchers mixed the U.K. variant (VOC202012/01) and the South Africa variant (501Y.V2) with an antibody and infected the host cells with them. Then, they assessed the antibody’s ability to suppress the virus.

Celltrion says its Covid-19 treatment Regkirona had a weak neutralizing effect against the South Africa variant of the Covid-19 virus.
Celltrion says its Covid-19 treatment Regkirona had a weak neutralizing effect against the South Africa variant of the Covid-19 virus.

The results showed that Regkirona’s neutralizing ability was potent against the U.K. variant but weak against the South Africa variant.

However, Celltrion noted that Regkirona aimed to target the dominant virus in the first place. The treatment secured a total of 38 neutralizing antibodies against Covid-19 in which the No. 32 antibody candidate showed neutralizing effect against new strains in the U.K. and South Africa, Celltrion said.

Earlier, the company confirmed that Regkirona was effective against six variant genome mutations of the Covid-19 virus (S, L, V, G, GH, and GR), confirmed in Korea.

Celltrion said it would develop a “variant-customized cocktail treatment” to fight the Covid-19 virus's emerging variants.

The company will mainly supply Regkirona and separately develop a new cocktail therapy using the No. 32 antibody candidate. It plans to complete the related clinical trial within the next six months.

Kwon Ki-sung, head of Celltrion's R&D unit, said Regkirona demonstrated a strong neutralizing ability not only against the dominant Covid-19 virus but mutants in Korea and the U.K. variant, which occupies the largest share of variants in the world.

“We will also speed up the development of customized cocktail antibody treatment to fight various mutants aggressively,” he added.

Celltrion recently obtained the regulatory approval for Regkirona to treat Covid-19 patients with mild and moderate symptoms in high-risk groups, on the condition that the company submits phase-3 clinical study results later.

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