South Korean pharmaceutical giant Celltrion Inc. said Monday that its antibody treatment candidate against COVID-19 has shown safety in its clinical trial.

Celltrion said it has enrolled 24 healthy volunteers in its global phase one clinical trial and confirmed the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of CT-P63.

Separately, Celltrion said that CT-P63 has maintained strong neutralizing ability against the omicron variant during pseudo-virus testing conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Celltrion plans to obtain the result of animal testing on CT-P63's ability against omicron by the end of this quarter.

CT-P63 is a monoclonal antibody targeting spike receptor binding domain as a treatment for COVID-19 infection. It has shown neutralizing ability against earlier variants -- alpha, beta, gamma and delta.

Celltrion anticipates cocktail therapy, which uses CT-P63 in combination with Rekirona, to respond to emerging mutants.

Rekirona is a monoclonal antibody with activity against COVID-19. A monoclonal antibody is a type of protein that has been designed to attach to a specific structure.

In February 2021, Rekirona won the South Korean drug safety agency's conditional approval, becoming the first locally made treatment for COVID-19.

The drug won overseas approval for emergency application by the European Medicines Agency. It has also been granted emergency use authorizations in several countries.

Celltrion said it plans to confirm the extensive neutralizing capacity of the cocktail therapy with Rekirona and CT-P63 on new variants during a follow-up global trial. (Yonhap)