Celltrion shares rose 7.58 percent on Tuesday, following news that an Italian COVID-19 patient tested negative for the virus a week after being treated with Celltrion’s autoimmune disease treatment Remsima.

Celltrion Healthcare, the global distributing arm of biologics drug manufacturer Celltrion, said that a patient in an Italian national hospital in Milan who had symptoms of pneumonia due to SARS CoV-2 infection, was treated with Remsima, and was discharged a week later after recovery.

The patient had existing condition of ulcerative colitis.

Celltrion Healthcare said that this was the first case in the world wherein a patient suffering a combination of COVID-19 and ulcerative colitis to have an alleviated condition from Remsima administration.

The result was published in the global gastroenterology journal Gut.

Remsima is currently undergoing advanced levels of clinical trials on COVID-19 patients to test if it will show therapeutic effects against the coronavirus.

The infliximab biosimilar is a tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) that is normally used to treat inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)