Corona drug could be approved this year

The Braunschweig-based start-up Corat Therapeutics is currently testing its drug on patients. If all goes well, the company plans to apply for emergency approval this year.

The biopharmaceutical start-up Corat Therapeutics hopes to be able to submit an application for provisional approval for a drug to treat Covid-19 before the end of this year. The current development could lead to an application for emergency approval at the end of the year, the company's scientific director, André Frenzel, told the German Press Agency.

At the end of April, the start-up from Braunschweig announced that it was testing its drug COR-101 on patients in a clinical trial. The drug consists of monoclonal antibodies that are intended to help moderately and severely ill patients. 45 patients in five German cities are testing COR-101. "COR-101 will be used to treat adult patients who have to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 and who may already require oxygen," says Helmut Salih, a physician from Tübingen and head of the study. "We are very confident that this study will be successful." The first results should be available in the summer.

Corat Therapeutics was founded in April 2020 as a spin-off of the biotech company Yumab with the aim of developing a coronavirus drug. The company is financially supported by Niedersächsische Landesbank and private investors.