Sorrento Therapeutics (SRNE) Receives Authorization From the UK Regulatory Agency to Conduct a Phase 2 Clinical Trial for COVI-DROPS in an Outpatient Setting

Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: SRNE, "Sorrento") today announced that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the United Kingdom’s regulatory agency, has cleared Sorrento’s COVI-DROPS product candidate for a Phase 2 efficacy trial. The application was submitted as a rolling application and the MHRA cleared the study in less than a month from Sorrento’s first submission to the MHRA. The application was supported by the safety data from a healthy subject study completed in the US, which showed a safety profile comparable to placebo with doses up to 60 mg. In this study, there were no serious adverse effects or dose limiting toxicities and all adverse effects were mild in severity. The maximum tolerated dose was not reached.

The Phase 2 efficacy trial is a large double-blind clinical trial enrolling 350 outpatients with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms in a 2:2:1 randomization with patients receiving 10mg, 20mg or placebo (details can be found on www.ClinicalTrials.gov using the identifier NCT04900428). This trial will complement the Phase 2 trial currently being started in the US and a separate trial to be started in Mexico.

COVI-DROPS is administered as an intranasal instillation in each nares to recently infected patients and utilizes the same neutralizing antibody drug substance as COVI-AMG, the intravenous formulation. The antibody is active against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as the most prevalent viral variants of concern (VoCs) currently infecting the UK and the US. These variants include the UK/Alpha and the India/Delta variants of concern.

The results of this Phase 2 trial in the UK will be combined with the results of the US and Mexico Phase 2 trials and should the results of these studies demonstrate that COVI-DROPS is both safe and effective against SARS-CoV-2, Sorrento will apply for Emergency Use Authorization in the US, India, UK, Mexico and European Union as well as other territories.

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