Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, we have a few vaccine options, treatments and pre-exposure antibody treatments available for immunocompromised individuals. Here we highlight a few clinical trials of drugs for COVID-19 that have been at least partially funded by the U.S. government.
Fostamatinib
Teams of researchers are interested in finding out if fostamatinib can be safe and helpful in treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The drug is given in pill form and is thought to inhibit pro-inflammatory molecules produced by immune cells. This could be an avenue for treatment since one reason why COVID-19 patients may get severely ill is that there is too much immune activity or inflammation in various organs in the body.
Fostamatinib had been previously tested in clinical trials for the treatment of chronic immune thrombocytopenia, a condition where antibodies attach to platelets and could lead to insufficient numbers of platelets in the bloodstream.
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PUL-042
The inhalant drug PUL-042 has been tested in multiple animal species, with results suggesting it may protect against infection from respiratory pathogens. In two different clinical trials, researchers have tested this as a treatment early during infection in symptomatic patients and as a prophylactic treatment for people who have had a known exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
According to the results, the median time until improvement of respiratory symptoms is six days for patients who received PUL-042 and nine days for people who received the placebo. With these phase 2 trials completed with 101 and 217 patients, respectively, the results suggest it may be worth testing it further, but more data will be needed to see if it could be an effective treatment.
Sargramostim
This drug has also completed phase 2 clinical trials. The drug is administered as an inhalant or intravenously to COVID-19 patients who have acute hypoxemia, meaning that there are low levels of oxygen in the blood. The trial enrolled 122 participants with 78 in the treatment group and 44 in the control group. The phase 2 results suggest the drug could be effective in treating hypoxemia, although that would be further evaluated in a phase 3 clinical trial with more participants.
Infliximab
The drug infliximab currently has results from a phase 2 clinical trial for treatment of COVID-19 patients. It is thought to help improve oxygenation and is often prescribed to patients with inflammatory disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. It works primarily by blocking a proinflammatory molecule called tumor necrosis factor from binding to its receptor. The median response is four days to improved oxygenation for 15 of the 17 clinical trial participants, according to the phase 2 results.
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Published on Mar 15,2022