[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Olix is showing strong performance. The news that an RNAi-based COVID-19 treatment candidate confirmed efficacy in cell line and animal experiments appears to have influenced the stock price. The company plans to enter clinical trials soon.
At 9:32 AM on the 7th, Olix was trading at 59,400 KRW, up 5.51%.
On the 7th, through a notice on its website, it stated, "We have confirmed efficacy of the RNA interference technology-based COVID-19 treatment candidate in various cell lines and animal experiments," and "Currently, we are in the stage of verifying the treatment's efficacy in an animal model infected with the COVID-19 virus."
It added, "Once efficacy is confirmed in virus-infected animal tests, we plan to promptly proceed with raw material synthesis and toxicity testing to apply for clinical trials as soon as possible."
It is expected that rapid clinical entry will be possible under the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's 'High-Intensity Rapid Productization Promotion Program (GO-Rapid Program)'. This government program supports fast development of treatments by exempting submission of some experimental results for candidate substances confirmed effective in animal efficacy tests.
Olix added, "We will do our best to develop the treatment early through organic cooperation with related institutions."
Earlier, in February, Olix began developing a COVID-19 treatment based on its 'self-delivering asymmetric RNAi core technology (cp-asiRNA)'. It also filed related patents.
In addition to COVID-19, it is preparing to respond to potential future novel coronaviruses. It selected similar nucleotide sequences and designed various asymmetric siRNAs. This method fixes the structure of RNA nucleic acid molecules forming the drug backbone while changing only the nucleotide sequences according to new disease targets. This approach has the advantage of relatively quickly deriving new drug candidates for emerging diseases.
Concerns are growing that new forms of respiratory viruses will continue to appear, not only SARS and COVID-19. Olix is preparing to rapidly develop treatments based on its secured RNAi platform.
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