Candidate: Veyonda®
Type: cGAS-STING signaling pathway inhibitor designed to treat the cytokine storm and septic shock associated with COVID-19
Status: Noxopharm said June 25 that it began its NOXCOVID clinical program in Europe with a planned Phase I trial designed to provide safety data and proof-of-principle of its lead candidate Veyonda, an immuno-oncology drug designed to work with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, as a potential COVID-19 treatment.
“While Veyonda is first and foremost an anti-cancer drug, a successful treatment of septic shock represents both an enormous commercial opportunity and a pressing humanitarian need that we cannot ignore,” Noxopharm executive chairman and CEO Graham Kelly, PhD, said in a statement.
On June 19, Noxopharm told shareholders it was launching the European trial, NOXCOVID-1. The dose-escalation and dose-expansion study will focus on safety and proof-of-principle endpoints based on biomarker and clinical responses. Up to approximately 40 patients who have been admitted to hospital for respiratory insufficiency associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus will be evaluated. The U.K.-based contract research organization Clinical Accelerator has been appointed to oversee the trial, while Australian-based Datapharm will process the data.
Noxopharm also said it was continuing discussions with FDA towards gaining IND approval for an expanded clinical trial in the U.S.
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
