Date: 1 April 2020 | Category: Headline News, News
Industry, academia and regulatory agencies are collaborating like never before to carry out COVID-19 research. Developing and testing both existing medicines and medicines in late-stage clinical trials to help patients fight Coronavirus infection.
Scientists are currently researching several types of potential therapies to tackle COVID-19 including anti-inflammatories, antimalarials, antibodies and antivirals.
Anti-inflammatories such as Kevzara, manufactured by Sanofi, can be used to treat inflammation in the lungs when a patient’s immune system has been overwhelmed. Antimalarials such as chloroquine have also been tested for its effectiveness.
Takeda in Japan are developing a drug derived from the plasma of patients who have recovered from COVID-19. These antibody-based treatments stimulate the patients immune system to attack specific threats such as viruses.
During the outbreak in China, treatment guidelines included the antiviral HIV drug Kaletra. Antivirals, such as Kaletra, prevent viruses from replicating.
A prime example of the fast-track development of an antiviral involves Atlanta-based Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory (DRIVE). They recently submitted an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their experimental COVID-19 treatment, EIDD-2801.
EIDD-2801 is an antiviral compound that directly attacks the coronavirus in the lungs. The compound is a nucleoside analogue that deceives the virus into attaching and injecting its genetic information into a false host (1).
In the past month DRIVE has partnered with Florida-based biotech company Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, specialists in emerging infectious diseases. The original intention was to combat influenza but DRIVE claim that the medicine can also be used to treat COVID-19 and other coronavirus strains.
The IND application titled “The Use of EIDD-2801 for the Treatment of Influenza”, consists of hundreds of hyperlinked research reports about the compound.
The FDA have 30 days to respond, however, DRIVE predict that they will respond sooner because of the dangers of COVID-19.
Vapourtec MD Duncan Guthrie commented: “When Industry and academia work closely together it’s incredible what can be achieved. Dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic urgently requires close collaboration on projects such as that demonstrated by DRIVE and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics”.
The Vapourtec team are keen to contribute where possible
The adoption of flow chemistry in one or more synthesis steps may help to accelerate the development of your synthesis, provide more material for trials or provide valuable information towards reaction kinetics.
Vapourtec are keen to collaborate and support your research to help in the fight against COVID-19. To aid this, our labs are well equipped with a comprehensive range of flow reactors and associated inline and offline analytical equipment. The team have vast experience in flow chemistry techniques and converting batch synthesis to flow.
Please contact us if you think flow processing can contribute to your COVID-19 research. We have equipment ready to loan if required.
