Yuhan teams up with AbClon to develop Covid treatment

A researcher is working in the lab of the pharmaceutical company Yuhan. [YUHAN]

Korea’s leading pharmaceutical company Yuhan is officially in the race to develop a Covid-19 treatment, the company announced Monday.

Yuhan has been the No. 1 pharmaceutical company in Korea by annual revenue for five years straight. The company said Monday that it is currently working with a smaller company, AbClon, to co-develop an antibody treatment against Covid-19.

A 20-year-old company specializing in antibody treatments, AbClon started developing a candidate substance targeting the respiratory disease in February this year. After narrowing down from a list of 20 candidate substances, the two companies are currently focusing on one candidate which Yuhan says showed positive effects in neutralizing the Covid-19 virus that swept Asia and the modified “G-Strain” prevalent in the United States and Europe.

Yuhan’s role in the collaboration would be conducting pre-clinical evaluations on the candidate substance, preparing documents for clinical trials and designing the structure and action plans of how the tests will be carried out.

A task force composed of staff from both companies is in charge of the development, Yuhan said. At the moment, their core focus is producing a sufficient amount of cells and samples that would be used at the pre-clinical stage and clinical tests. AbClon already has prior experience co-developing treatments with Yuhan.

“At a time when the entire world is facing a crisis due to the pandemic, sharing technology and assets among industry insiders is the best way to accelerate development of a Covid-19 treatment. We will do our best to contribute to the well-being of humanity,” said Yuhan CEO and President Lee Jung-hee.

BY SONG KYOUNG-SON [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]