• British American Tobacco Working on Plant-Based Coronavirus Vaccine

    British American Tobacco, the maker of brands including Lucky Strike, Dunhill, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges, has said it has a potential coronavirus vaccine in development using tobacco plants. Mark Sweney writes in the Guardian that BAT has turned the vast resources usually focused on creating products that pose health risks to millions of smokers worldwide to battling the global pandemic.
    BAT said its US biotech subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), has moved to pre-clinical testing and that it will work on the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis.
    BAT said it had cloned a portion of the genetic sequence of the coronavirus and developed a potential antigen. The antigen was then inserted into tobacco plants for reproduction and, once the plants were harvested, the antigen was purified. It is now undergoing pre-clinical testing.

  • InflaRx Starts Dosing COVID-19 Patients in Europe

    German biopharmaceutical firm InflaRx has enrolled and dosed the first patient in a clinical study of IFX-1 in Covid-19 patients with severe pneumonia in the Netherlands.
    Clinical Trials Arena reports thatIFX-1 is a monoclonal anti-human complement factor C5a antibody designed to inhibit the biological activity of C5a. The drug is not believed to impact the formation of the membrane attack complex (C5b-9).
    According to preclinical data, IFX-1 showed ability to control the inflammatory response-related tissue and organ damage via a selective blockade of C5a in the adaptive, randomized, controlled trial.
    The drug was found to be well tolerated in around 300 clinical trial participants, according to the company.
    IFX-1 is currently in development to treat inflammatory conditions such as hidradenitis suppurativa, ANCA-associated vasculitis, and pyoderma gangraenosum.

  • A Corona Test that Can Be Done Over the Phone

    Voice analysis can achieve amazing results, such as accurately guessing the shape of a speaker’s face, accurately guessing whether the speaker has been drinking tea or coffee, or diagnosing a variety of different diseases. While new, this field has already drawn the interest of academics, Israeli startups, and companies around the world.

    Shem Ur, a professional inventor, writes in the Times of Israel that he has decided to develop an over-the-phone coronavirus phone test. He writes:

    Right now, we are working to create software that can detect the coronavirus infection using only a person’s voice. For this, we need voice data from as many people as possible. Please help us by completing our voice questionnaire at Corona Voice Detect.

    If you know anybody who has tested positive, please ask them to complete the questionnaire as well. Their voice data is especially necessary for creating a program that can identify infections. If you think your friends, relatives, or anyone else might want to do this, please share it with them. The ability to identify infections is key to managing the situation and every piece of data will help us do this more effectively.

  • Coronavirus: As a Health Economist, I’m Not Convinced the Case for Mass Testing Stacks Up

    Health economists think in terms of benefits from a course of action: lives saved, years of life saved and something we call quality-adjusted life years saved or QALYs. Yet in the present crisis, the data to make such calculations is likely to come too late. In a situation with (perceived) high risks and an immediate impact, there is a “rule of rescue” that says you decide now, still using rational reasoning, and worry about the QALYs later. So here’s my perspective as a health economist about the best way forward.

  • A Multipronged Attack against a Shared Enemy

    Teams of medical researchers at Harvard have joined the frantic race to find a treatment for the novel coronavirus as the global pandemic intensifies. The approaches are varied and include designing small molecules that can inhibit proteins in the virus, harnessing the natural power of the human immune system by extracting antibodies from recovered patients, and repurposing existing antivirals made to fight other diseases.

  • Study Identifies Medications Safe to Use in COVID-19 Treatment

    A recent study has found that there is no evidence for or against the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen for patients with COVID-19. The study, led by researchers at King’s College London, also found other types of drugs, such as TNF blockers and JAK inhibitors safe to use.
    89 existing studies on other coronavirus strains such as MERS and SARS, as well as the limited literature on COVID-19, were analyzed to find out if certain pain medications, steroids, and other drugs used in people already suffering from diseases should be avoided if they catch COVID-19.
    Kings College notes that there had been some speculation that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen might make things worse for some COVID-19 patients, but the researchers did not find evidence to support this statement. Other types of drugs such as TNF blockers and JAK inhibitors, used to treat arthritis or other forms of inflammation, were also found to be safe to use. Another class of drug known as anti-interleukin-6 agents is being investigated for helping to fight COVID-19, although there is no conclusive proof yet.
    The researchers found that low amounts of prednisolone or tacrolimus therapy may be helpful in treating COVID-19.

  • Antibodies in the Blood of COVID-19 Survivors Know How to Beat Coronavirus – and Researchers Are Already Testing New Treatments that Harness Them

    Amid the chaos of an epidemic, those who survive a disease like COVID-19 carry within their bodies the secrets of an effective immune response. “Virologists like me look to survivors for molecular clues that can provide a blueprint for the design of future treatments or even a vaccine,” Ann Sheehy writes in The Conversationt.
    Researchers are launching trials now that involve the transfusion of blood components from people who have recovered from COVID-19 to those who are sick or at high risk. Called “convalescent-plasma therapy,” this technique can work even without doctors knowing exactly what component of the blood may be beneficial.
    The extraordinary power of this passive immunization has traditionally been challenging to harness, primarily due to the difficulty of obtaining significant amounts of plasma from survivors. “Fast forward to the 21st century, and the passive immunization picture changes considerably, thanks to steady advances in molecular medicine and new technologies that allow scientists to quickly characterize and scale up the production of the protective molecules,” she writes.

  • Bellerophon Starts INOpulse Treatment in Coronavirus Patients

    Bellerophon Therapeutics has treated the first Covid-19 patient with its INOpulse at the University of Miami School of Medicine in the US.
    This comes after the company received emergency expanded access from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the inhaled nitric oxide system (iNO).
    Clinical Trials Arena reports that NO is a naturally produced molecule that plays a key role in the immune response against pathogens and infections.
    In-vitro studies found that NO blocks the replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and improves the survival of infected cells.

  • Japan's Fujifilm Starts Avigan Trial to Treat Coronavirus

    Japan’s Fujifilm has begun clinical trials to test the effectiveness of its anti-flu drug Avigan in treating patients with the new coronavirus, after reports of promising results in China.
    The Bangkok Times reports that trials in China have suggested Avigan (generic name: favipiravir) could play a role in shortening the recovery time for patients infected with coronavirus.
    The drug will be administered for a maximum of 14 days to coronavirus patients between 20 and 74 years old with mild pneumonia, the spokesman said.
    The study excludes pregnant women due to side effects shown in animal testing, he added.

  • Pluristem Begins Dosing with Covid-19 Therapy in Israel

    Pluristem Therapeutics has started dosing Covid-19 patients in Israel with PLX cells under a compassionate use programme approved by the country’s health ministry.
    Dosing was performed in three patients at two hospitals. Pluristem intends to recruit more coronavirus patients in the coming days.
    Clinical Trials reports that PLX cells are off-the-shelf allogeneic mesenchymal-like cells with immunomodulatory properties that could trigger the immune system’s natural regulatory T-cells and M2 macrophages.
    This mechanism is expected to block the overactivation of the immune system, which leads to complications.
    It is hoped that the approach will potentially decrease the incidence and\or severity of pneumonia and pneumonitis associated with Covid-19 infection.

  • Potential Drug Treatment Starts U.K. Trials

    A drug that could help treat coronavirus is to be trialed on a small number of patients in England and Scotland.
    The studies, which have been fast-tracked by the government, will initially involve 15 NHS centers.
    The BBC reports that in the absence of a known treatment for the virus, a handful of experimental drugs are being tested globally.
    The drug, known as remdesivir, is manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Gilead.
    Two studies are to be carried out in the UK - one on patients with moderate symptoms, and one on those who are in a serious condition.
    Trials are already underway in China and the US, with the first results expected in the coming weeks.
    The UK trials will be based in England and Scotland and overseen by Dr. Andrew Ustianowski, a consultant in infectious diseases.

  • COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator Awards $20 Million to Fund Clinical Trials

    The COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, a global initiative launched in March by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard, has announced three grants totaling $20 million in support of efforts to identify repurposed drugs and immunotherapies for COVID-19.

  • Uncertainty about Facts Can Be Reported Without Damaging Public Trust in News: Study

    The numbers that drive headlines – those on Covid-19 infections, for example – contain significant levels of uncertainty: assumptions, limitations, extrapolations, and so on. Experts and journalists have long assumed that revealing the ‘noise’ inherent in data confuses audiences and undermines trust. A series of experiments – including one on the BBC News website – finds the use of numerical ranges in news reports helps us grasp the uncertainty of stats while maintaining trust in data and its sources.

  • Coronavirus: A New Type of Vaccine Using RNA Could Help Defeat COVID-19

    Scientists had already identified the polio virus in 1916, but it took 50 more years to develop a vaccine. That vaccine eradicated polio in the U.S. in less than a decade. Vaccines are one of the most effective modern disease-fighting tools.
    Sanjay Mishra and Robert Carnahan write in The Conversation that as of this writing, the fast-spreading COVID-19 has already infected almost half a million worldwide, and has killed over 22,000 patients. There is an urgent need for a vaccine to prevent it from infecting and killing millions more. But traditional vaccine development takes, on average, 16 years.
    So how can scientists quickly develop a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2?
    “As immunologists, we are trying to expedite development of vaccines and antibody therapeutics,” Mishra and Carnahan write, noting that the Pandemic Protection Platform Program run by the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense uses fast-track “sprints” to help us identify and deploy protective antibody treatments against viral outbreaks, such as SARS-CoV-2. Now other colleagues of ours are working on expediting a new type of vaccine for COVID-19.

  • Labs Are Experimenting with New – but Unproven – Methods to Create a Coronavirus Vaccine Fast

    This is the idea behind vaccines: give the body an opportunity to build defenses against a virus it may encounter in the future.Jean Peccoud writes in The Conversation that with the coronavirus literally making time a matter of life and death, nearly 50 public and private labs are turning to newer, safer and faster methods to develop a coronavirus vaccine. There are three categories of vaccines:
    Protein-based vaccines: Rather than injecting the whole virus, it is possible to vaccinate a person with a single virus component. The pieces most commonly used are proteins from the surface of a virus.Two companies, Sanofi and Novawax, are both developing protein vaccines based on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, the tower-shaped structures on the surface of the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
    Gene-based vaccines: Theoretically, the simplest and fastest way to make a vaccine would be to have a person’s own cells produce minute quantities of the viral protein that trigger an immune response. To do that researchers are turning to genetics.As of yet, there are no DNA vaccines currently approved by the FDA for human use and the success of this method has been limited. But there is promise. In 2016, several groups developed candidate Zika vaccines using this technology and at least one company, INOVIO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is developing INO-4800, a DNA vaccine candidate for the coronavirus. Notable in the U.S. is Moderna, and on March 16, the National Institutes of Health started a clinical trial of Moderna’s lead coronavirus vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273.
    Friendly virus vaccines: The main issue with gene-based vaccines is getting the DNA or RNA to where it needs to be. One elegant way to solve this challenge is to use a harmless virus as a delivery system. This technique is being pursued by a few companies around the world. For example, Hong Kong-based CanSino Biologics is inserting the coronavirus gene that codes for the spike protein into an adenovirus. They used this strategy to produce the first government-approved Ebola vaccine, and clinical trials of an engineered adenovirus that would protect against the coronavirus have already started in China.