Celltrion and Genexine stocks were upbeat Wednesday, on the back of Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology’s announcement the day before that Korean scientists have succeeded in deriving meaningful results from COVID-19 treatment and vaccine candidates’ animal tests.

Celltrion shares started 1.48 percent higher than the previous day at 308,500 won ($260) while Genexine’s started 4.99 percent higher at 126,200 won.

KRIBB said Tuesday that in primates modeled with COVID-19 infection, Celltrion’s COVID-19 treatment candidate eradicated all traces of SARS CoV-2 in 24 hours of administration.

As for Genexine’s deoxyribonucleic acid vaccine candidate, the pipeline removed fever from those administrated with the vaccine, as compared to the control group.

In 48 hours of the vaccine administration, no virus was detected in the upper respiratory tract, the major transmission route of coronavirus.

KRIBB said that the research results were passed on to relevant firms developing the treatments and vaccines.

In addition, both Celltrion and Genexine are carrying out phase 1 clinical trials of their treatment and vaccine candidates. Clinical phase 1 trials involve testing the toxicity of the drug candidate on healthy people. Celltrion started CT-P59’s phase 1 trial on July 17 and Genexine started GX-19’s phase 1/2a trial on June 11.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)