[Featured Stock] Sejong Medical, Genensel Treatment Excellent in Combating Omicron... Strong Binding Energy

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] Sejong Medical is showing strong performance. The natural product-based candidate substance 'ES16001' developed by Genensel is expected to be effective against the Omicron variant, which appears to be influencing the stock price.

As of 9:52 AM on the 27th, Sejong Medical was trading at 7,440 KRW, up 18.10% (1,140 KRW) compared to the previous trading day.

Kang Se-chan, founder of Genensel and professor at Kyung Hee University’s College of Life Sciences, recently stated in an interview with an economic magazine, "At the end of October, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety approved the domestic Phase 2 and 3 clinical trial plan (IND) for ES16001 as a COVID-19 treatment, and we are currently preparing to select clinical institutions and simultaneously apply for Institutional Review Board (IRB) review."

Professor Kang introduced, "ES16001 has a mechanism that binds to the RBD (receptor-binding domain) of the virus-host cell receptor of the COVID-19 causative virus, thereby inhibiting viral activity." He added, "One of the several active ingredients, 'Jelanin,' is expected to inhibit viral infection and replication and block host cell invasion and activation."

Professor Kang explained, "The average binding energies of Jelanin with the original virus, Alpha variant, and Omicron variant spike RBD were -9.43, -12.28, and -12.35 kcal/mol, respectively. The kcal/mol value indicates that the larger the absolute value, regardless of negative or positive, the stronger the binding energy." He emphasized, "As a result, this experiment produced data predicting that the effect on the variant virus will be greater than on the original virus."

Recently, Genensel, together with its largest shareholder Sejong Medical and bio-venture Mbiome Therapeutics, conducted a 'binding prediction (a quantitative analysis method to determine activity)' between the Omicron virus protein and the main components of ES16001. This predictive experiment analyzed the binding mechanism of the active ingredient Jelanin of ES16001 to the RBD using the latest molecular binding analysis methods and a deep learning-based binding prediction program. According to Professor Kang, since ES16001 is more effective against variants than the original virus, it is expected to significantly contribute to combating Omicron.