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“For almost a year, I went to work at 8 am and left at 12 pm. The researchers were eating through the night. We resist with a sense of mission to save people ”. (Kwon Ki-seong, Director of the Celltrion Research Institute)
“It wasn’t once or twice that I got an emergency call in the middle of the night and ran to the factory. It was a difficult day, but when I hear the words ‘Thank you, I can get vaccinated’, I feel proud. (Seon Kwon, Head of the Quality Management Team, SK Bioscience)
The new approval of national drugs for coronavirus infection (Corona 19) is coming soon. The vaccination will also start next month. It is a step towards the end of the crown. It is thanks to those who worked day and night for the development of the COVID-19 treatment and the production of vaccines.
“The development of a new domestic drug was like a war.”
In early February last year, just after the first confirmed coronavirus in Korea. Celltrion president Seo Jeong-jin gave a special order to develop a crown treatment within 10 months at an executive meeting. “It took me a year to search for new drug candidates, which was an almost impossible goal. Also, I couldn’t guarantee that Corona would be riding all year like now. We started with the risk that we would have to crash because there was no commerciality during development. “Kwon Ki-seong, director of the Celltrion Research Center, said about the situation a year ago.
The sweat of more than 180 Celltrion researchers melts away in the ‘CT-P59’ corona antibody treatment, which began development in February last year. On February 27 last year, blood samples from patients recovering from Corona 19 were received for the first time at Seoul National University Hospital. The Celltrion researchers went straight to three shifts and searched for candidates throughout the day. Dozens of researchers were invested in the development of candidate materials alone. On March 23, a month later, 300 potential candidates for COVID-19 treatment were found. It was about 5 months shorter than usual.
The final candidate discovery process was no different from gambling. Once the cell line was found, it was cultured and purified immediately before deciding on the final candidate. CEO Kwon said: “I was aware that if a defect happened in the middle, I had to fold it immediately,” he said. “In this process, I received a lot of stress from failure.”
Celltrion, which derived the final candidate pool of antibodies on April 13, entered phase 1 clinical trials in July. Director Kwon said: “All the researchers focused on developing treatments with a sense of call rather than money.” He said, “I only made one or two personal appointments last year,” he said. “I went ‘head on’ with the determination to deliver results unconditionally.”
The clinical process was not easy either. SOS came from an employee who stayed in Romania last December. “(The number of confirmed cases is increasing) This is a battlefield. There is no time for the clinician to organize the data ”.
The clinical trial was about to be delayed. A setback was inevitable with the plan to apply for a permit for 2020. This time Celltrion vice president Ki Woo-sung appeared. He canceled all his vacation schedules and took a flight to Romania. He met with local doctors and staff who had stayed in Romania to support the clinical trial and solved the problem one by one. “The staff stayed up all night and helped the doctors organize the data,” he said. “After the dedication and sacrifice of the staff, we were miraculously able to request conditional approval.”
“I am proud to be at the forefront of vaccine production”
Team Leader SK Bio Kwon Se-on
Kwon Se-on, Head of the Quality Management (QC) team at SK Bioscience, leads the quality management of the COVID-19 vaccine production, which signed a contract with AstraZeneca in July last year and with NovaVax in August. AstraZeneca’s viral vector vaccine and NovaVax’s protein recombination vaccine use live cells. Even small changes in the growing environment, such as temperature and humidity, can cause problems. In the event of such an emergency, the investigator in charge is called anytime, anywhere. Team leader Kwon said, “Eight researchers from the QA team are in charge of different cell culture tasks,” he said. “I am always nervous because a large number of cells can be discarded even if a small problem occurs in the culture process.”
SK Bio, Manager Eun-Som Kim
The reality that the job-level personnel of vaccine developers AstraZeneca and NovaVax was difficult to cope with was also quite difficult. Typically when consignment production takes place, professionals from both companies meet, transfer the technology required for production, and go through a review process. However, this procedure was omitted for the corona vaccine. The schedule was tight, but it was because the crown blocked traffic. “I solved the problem by email and video call,” Kwon said, saying, “The knowledge accumulated in the flu vaccine production process was helpful.”
SK Bioscience is also developing a COVID-19 vaccine. Kim Eun-som, manager of the innovation team at SK Bioscience’s Pangyo Research Center, said: “Since February last year, all researchers have been dedicated to investigating the efficacy of vaccines.”
Reporter Kim Woo-seop / Choi Ji-won [email protected]
