New drug helps COVID-19 patients recover

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• COVID-19 patients, who were critically-ill, recovered quickly from respiratory failure after being treated with RLF-100 for three days.
• RLF-100 or aviptadil is a synthetic form of a natural peptide that protects the lung, according to two drug companies.
• The U.S. FDA granted fast-track designation to RLF-100 in June for the treatment of respiratory distress in COVID-19 patients.

Patients who experienced severe complications from coronavirus recovered quickly from respiratory failure after three days of treatment with RLF-100 or aviptadil.

According to drug companies — Geneva-based Relief Therapeutics Holdings AG RFLB.S and US-Israeli NeuroRx Inc., RLF-100 is a therapy granted fast-track designation in the United States.

Relief has a patent for RLF-100, a synthetic form of a natural peptide that protects the lung. NeuroRx Inc. partnered with Relief to develop the drug in the US.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted fast-track designation to RLF-100 in June for the treatment of respiratory distress in coronavirus patients.

A Phase 2/3 clinical trial that involves 70 patients is still ongoing, but RLF-100 is already being used on an emergency basis to some critically-ill patients.

Houston Methodist Hospital was the first to report a rapid recovery under emergency use of RLF-100. The hospital reported a case of a 54-year-old man who developed COVID-19 while being treated for rejection of a double lung transplant. He came off a ventilator within four days of treatment with RLF-100.

Similar results were subsequently seen in more than 15 patients treated under emergency use, the drug companies reported.

The two companies added that independent researchers in a biocontainment laboratory in Brazil reported that aviptadil blocked replication of the SARS coronavirus in human lung cells and immune cells.

“No other antiviral agent has demonstrated rapid recovery from viral infection and demonstrated laboratory inhibition of viral replication,” NeuroRx CEO Jonathan Javitt said.

The clinical trials are looking at whether similar observations will be confirmed for less ill patients with COVID-19-related respiratory failure.

An independent data monitoring committee will be conducting an interim analysis of these data later this month, Javitt told Reuters.

Source: Reuters