Celltrion’s final trial for its COVID-19 drug shows it can lower risk of severe infection by 70%

Celltrion revealed the results of its phase 3 clinical trial for its COVID-19 treatment drug called Regkirona. The final testing was said to have yielded good results, and the biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Incheon, South Korea, presented it at a conference in Europe.

The effectiveness of Celltrion’s Regkirona

As per The Korea Herald, Celltrion said on Tuesday, July 13, that its anti-body COVID-19 treatment can reduce the risk of the infection from becoming a severe case by 70%. Based on the final round of tests, the high-risk groups showed a reduced progression rate to severe infection by 72%.

The patients who were administered the Regkirona treatment were able to recover from COVID-19 in just 8.4 days. This was said to be 4.9 days faster compared to patients who used placebo treatment and recovered for 13.3 days.

For high-risk groups, Celltrion’s anti-body treatment helped patients recover for 9.3 days which is likewise faster by 4.7 days compared to the placebo group who recovered in 14 days. Moreover, the Korean biopharmaceutical company further discovered that its treatment significantly reduced viral titers in patients after they were given Regkirona.

Most importantly, there were no severe adverse effects or allergic reactions detected. Besides the mild and temporary reactions from patients, there have been no reports of severe responses to the drug. While the results of the trial were good, Celltrion is still testing if the treatment is also effective against other variants of COVID-19, such as the delta.

The presentation in Europe

The results of Celltrion’s antibody COVID-19 treatment were presented in Europe by Oana Sandulescu, who is an associate professor at Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy. She shared the results during the 31st European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases that was held online from July 9 to 12, according to The Korea Economic Daily.

Sandulescu attested that Regkirona significantly lowered the rate of progression for severe coronavirus infection symptoms and hastened the recovery time too. In any case, the associate professor took part in the clinical trial of Regkirona that was conducted from January to April with 1,315 participants from 13 countries.