[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] RedHill Biopharma, a US/Israel biotechnology company in which Kookbo Co., Ltd., a KOSPI-listed company, has acquired shares, announced on the 6th that its oral COVID-19 treatment under development, opaganib, significantly improved the virus clearance ability in severe hospitalized patients in Phase 2/3 trials.
In this study, opaganib improved the median time to virus RNA clearance by at least 4 days. The median time to virus clearance was improved to 10 days in the opaganib treatment group, whereas in the placebo group, the virus was not cleared even by the end of the 14-day treatment period, indicating significant results.
RedHill stated that these results were achieved in a group of severe hospitalized patients with a median of 11 days since symptom onset, which is a much more severe patient group compared to Pfizer’s recently approved treatment for mild patients within 5 days of symptom onset.
Mark Levitt, RedHill’s Chief Scientific Officer, said, "As the first oral treatment showing improved virus RNA clearance results in severe COVID-19 patients, these results add to the 62% reduction in mortality observed in the post hoc analysis of the existing Phase 2/3 study of opaganib, and confirm the viral suppression observed in preclinical studies against Delta and other variants."
Meanwhile, RedHill stated that these results have been added to the study data and are being provided to relevant regulatory agencies as part of ongoing discussions for new drug approvals in several countries.
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