[Featured Stock] Humasis Gains Attention as Rapid Antigen Test Kit Approved by MFDS... Effective Against COVID-19 Variants

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Humasis is showing strong performance day after day. It appears that the news of Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon urging the central government to introduce self-diagnostic kits, which have become commonplace overseas in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, to Korea has influenced the stock price.

As of 9:57 AM on the 13th, Humasis is trading at 13,150 KRW, up 14.85% from the previous day.

Mayor Oh stated at an online COVID-19 briefing the day before, "At this morning's Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters (CDSCH) meeting, I requested the central government to actively consider the introduction of self-diagnostic kits."

In the United States, self-diagnostic kits can be purchased at pharmacies and grocery stores. In the United Kingdom, diagnostic kits are distributed free of charge twice a week.

Earlier, on the 18th of last month, Humasis announced that it had received formal domestic approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) for its COVID-19 rapid antigen diagnostic kit.

The rapid antigen diagnostic kit approved by the MFDS is the 'COVID-19 Ag Test' product jointly developed with Celltrion. It can confirm positive or negative results within 15 minutes by collecting a single nasopharyngeal swab specimen from a patient suspected of infection.

Humasis's rapid antigen diagnostic kit demonstrated a sensitivity of approximately 89.4% in domestic clinical trials, capable of diagnosing virus-infected positive patients as positive. It also recorded a specificity of 100% in tests confirming virus-free healthy individuals.

It has proven equivalent detection capability for variant viruses originating from the United Kingdom and South Africa compared to the original virus.

A Humasis official said, "The product that received formal domestic approval recently showed high performance exceeding 90% in clinical trials conducted in the United States, Czech Republic, and Brazil," adding, "We expect demand for Humasis's rapid antigen diagnostic kits to increase in both domestic and international markets and will actively pursue market expansion."

Humasis recently became the first domestic company to receive approval for the use of a self-administered antigen diagnostic kit in the Czech Republic.