Candidates: Two prescription drugs and two over-the-counter compounds
Types: Drug designed to reduce viral replication, limit inflammatory events, and help protect against acute lung injury; Drug designed to reduce viral load, improve the primary ARDS component of the disease and reduce the cytokine storm in COVID-19; Two adjunct treatments (over-the-counter compounds)
Status: Biovista said April 22 it was repositioning two prescription drugs and two over-the-counter treatments into therapeutics to counter key symptoms of COVID-19, with details in a white paper the company said was available by email request, but which has yet to be forwarded to GEN. In a statement, the company said one drug showed potential to reduce viral replication, limit inflammatory events, and help protect against acute lung injury. A second drug showed potential to reduce viral load, improving the primary ARDS component of the disease and reducing the cytokine storm in COVID-19. The over-the-counter compounds, Biovista said, would be adjunct treatments.
Biovista said its AI platform has assessed to date over 13,000 approved drugs and pharmaceutically active compounds. “Working from these initial findings, we are open to collaborators able to test these candidates and hypotheses in either virtual clinical trials using EMR and EHR data, or in models and trials,” stated Aris Persidis, PhD, Biovista’s president and co-founder.
COVID-19: 200 Candidates and Counting
To navigate through the >200 potential therapeutic and vaccine options for COVID-19, GEN has grouped the candidates into four broad categories based on their developmental and (where applicable) clinical progress:
● FRONT RUNNER – the most promising therapeutics/vaccines based on clinical progress, favorable data or both.
● DEFINITELY MAYBE – earlier phases with promising partners, or more advanced candidates in development that have generated uneven data.
● KEEPING AN EYE ON… – interesting technology, attracting notable partners, or both, but preliminary data.
● TOO SOON TO TELL – longshots pending additional experimental and/or clinical data.
GEN has also tagged the most common treatment types:
● ANTIVIRAL
● VAX
● ANTIBODY
● RNA
