Hyundai Bioscience has announced that CNPharm, its major shareholding biotech company, has succeeded in developing 'Poly-COV01,' an injection drug for the potential treatment of patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Hyundai Bioscience stated that CNPharm teamed up with Dt&CRO, a Korean contract research organization (CRO), to process animal and clinical studies for this new COVID-19 injection drug.

Hyundai Bio expects that Poly-COV01 may become a 'hopeful shot' as a last resort for severely ill patients with COVID-19 who are currently at the crossroads of life and death. Determined to proceed with the clinical procedure of Poly-COV01 as quickly as possible, Hyundai Bioscience is now working with Korean authorities to schedule an efficacy study.

It is reported that, similar to 'Peramivir,' an injection to serve as the last hope for severely ill patients who were unable to take 'Tamiflu', the 'game changer' oral drug, during the 2009 influenza, Poly-COV01 was developed for the few severely ill COVID-19 patients who cannot ingest drugs orally or through nasal inhalation.

Hyundai Bio states that the active pharmaceutical ingredient or API of Poly-COV01's is Niclosamide and they successfully resolved the short half-life problem of Niclosamide in the blood. Poly-COV01 was developed based on CNPharm's 'pain-free anticancer drug' platform with the aim of maintaining 'IC100,' an effective drug concentration level in the blood that inhibits virus proliferation by 100% by controlling the number of administrations. It is characterized by minimizing the side effects from drug toxicity.

Niclosamide was selected by the Institut Pasteur Korea as the No. 1 candidate for the treatment of COVID-19 among major drugs of the world in April 2020. In addition to its potency to treat coronavirus, pharmaceutical societies have acknowledged its capability to treat other diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

Hyundai Bio is pursuing a plan to provide priority to severely ill patients who are further driven into outlying treatments in the 'third coronavirus pandemic wave'. If approved as 'Expanded Access Program', Poly-COV01 can be administered to patients even before it is finally approved as new drug. Expanded Access Program is an exceptional program that allows new drugs in the clinical stage, prior to new drug approval, to be administered to patients with incurable diseases or terminal cancer.