GC Wellbeing said Monday that its joint research with Chungbuk National University College of Medicine has found that human placental extract Laennec has an antiviral effect similar to Covid-19 therapies.

Researchers infected healthy ferrets with the new coronavirus and measured the virus titer by administering Laennec with antiviral drugs Remdesivir and Truvada in separate groups.

Laennec showed efficacy equivalent to those of Remdesivir and Truvada, the company said. All groups vaccinated with the Covid-19 virus showed weight loss and increased body temperature until the fourth day of infection.

When the subjects were injected with Laennec and antiviral drugs, symptoms gradually improved between the sixth and 12th day compared with the negative control group.

The group injected with Laennec significantly reduced the proliferation of the Covid-19 virus to a similar degree to groups administered with other antiviral drugs.

"We believe the study will have much value in that it directly demonstrated the therapeutic effect of Laennec on Covid-19 compared with other antiviral drugs in an animal model," a GC Wellbeing researcher said. "We are conducting a last-minute study to find a nucleic acid material candidate in exosome expected to act directly on the virus and identify the mechanism."

The antioxidative and inhibitory effects of Laennec on inflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-a, and protein Cyclooxygenase-2 have been demonstrated through previous studies.

GC Wellbeing's Laennec is the only placental extract drug in Korea, which has obtained marketing approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.