On the 31st, Lucas Bio, a corporation specializing in antiviral therapies, announced that clinical research results on an immune cell therapy using immune cells (T cells) for severe COVID-19 patients have been published in the Journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).
This study is the world's first clinical case to cure long-term COVID-19 infections with a treatment made from T cells extracted from the patient's blood when there were no treatment options available.
Patients with blood cancers or those undergoing immunosuppressive treatments for organ transplants find it difficult to recover even after receiving COVID-19 antiviral medications. Long-term infections can lead to severe pneumonia and even death.
A research team led by Professor Lee Rae-seok at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital conducted this study to verify whether autologous virus antigen-specific T cells are effective in treating immunocompromised patients, including those with severe complications from COVID-19.
As a result of administering the virus antigen-specific T cell therapy 'LB-DTK-COV19' to three blood cancer patients suffering from severe pneumonia due to COVID-19, all three patients showed a 100% cure rate with the virus eliminated and pneumonia lesions reduced.
LB-DTK-COV19 is a personalized treatment that amplifies the patient's memory T cells in their blood. It is created from the T cells in the patient's body, leading to long-term survival within the patient's body without causing special immune responses, thus eliciting immune reactions.
Based on this achievement, Lucas Bio is preparing related procedures with the aim of obtaining approval for treatment plans under the Advanced Regenerative Medicine and Advanced Therapy Products Act this year. The company said, "In light of the recent resurgence of COVID-19 and concerns over a potential avian influenza pandemic, the platform technology of this therapy, LB-DTK, is expected to respond to various novel and variant viruses."