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Lublin-based firm claims world’s first effective treatment for COVID-19

Poland is on track to become the first country in the world to have an effective treatment for neutralising the Covid-19 virus after a drug was released for non-commercial clinical trials.

If all goes to plan, the drug, produced by the biotechnology company Biomed Lublin, will be available after several months.

The firm said it had produced thousands of ampoules of the still-unnamed drug after initial research confirmed its efficacy.

“Today, on September 23, 2020, the production stage has been completed, and as a result, more than three thousand ampoules of anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin have been produced, which after the completion of the required quality tests, including product stability tests, will be submitted to clinical trials in four centres: in Lublin, Bytom, Białystok and Warsaw,” said Marcin Piróg, Biomed’s CEO, at a press conference.

“The release of the drug for non-commercial clinical trials is planned in the fourth quarter of 2020,” he added.

The drug, made by fractionating the plasma of people who were recovering from Covid-19 or who had it asymptomatically, contains anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulins that can fight and neutralise the deadly virus.

The clinical trials follow in the wake of testing by a team led by Professor Krzysztof Pyrć, from the Małopolska Center of Biotechnology of the Jagiellonian University, of an active substance derived from work carried out by Biomed on plasma.Łukasz Gągulski/PAP

As it is derived from blood plasma the drug, its supporters say, it is effective and safe.

“We have a drug, a Polish drug, for Covid-19 that works,” said Dr. Grzegorz Czelej, a member of the Polish senate and one of the initiators of the drug project.

He added: “Treatment of Covid-19 with plasma from convalescents has already been approved by WHO, the FDA and the Polish Ministry of Health. Scientists from around the world report on the effectiveness of plasma therapy in the treatment of Covid-19. The safety of plasma drugs has been proven by several decades of practice, which is confirmed by experts.”

The clinical trials follow in the wake of testing by a team led by Professor Krzysztof Pyrć, from the Małopolska Center of Biotechnology of the Jagiellonian University, of an active substance derived from work carried out by Biomed on plasma. The testing proved that the substance was far more effective than plasma at defeating Covid-19.

The firm says that release of the drug for non-commercial clinical trials is planned in the fourth quarter of 2020.Wojtek Jargiło/PAP

“Biomed Lublin S.A. was the first in the world to unequivocally prove that it has the technology to produce a plasma drug containing antibodies neutralising the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” said Piróg.

“Thanks to this technology, it is possible to produce a drug containing a concentrated dose of such antibodies and it can effectively use human plasma, which, after the fractionation process, can be converted into a drug with a treatment efficiency greater than plasma alone.” 

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