The Dream Team: Scientists Find Drug Duo That May Cure COVID-19 Together

AHA Publisher — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 07:00:11 +0000

Tokyo University of Science via EurekAlert – COVID-19 continues to claim lives across the world and is infecting millions more. Although several vaccines have recently become available, making significant strides towards preventing COVID-19, what about the treatment of those who already have the infection? Vaccines aren’t 100% effective, highlighting the need–now more than ever–for effective antiviral therapeutics. Moreover, some people can’t receive vaccines due to health issues, and new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that can penetrate vaccine-conferred immunity, are being reported, indicating that we need to think beyond prevention. Given this need, a team of researchers based in Japan, the US, and the UK launched a project to develop effective therapeutics. This team included several researchers based at Tokyo University of Science: Visiting Professor Koichi Watashi, Dr. Hirofumi Ohashi, Professor Shin Aoki, Professor Kouji Kuramochi, and Assistant Professor Tomohiro Tanaka. Their goal was clear and simple: finding a cure for COVID-19. To achieve this goal, the researchers first established an experimental system for screening drugs that may help to control infections. This system used a type of cells called VeroE6/TMPRSS2 cells, which were manipulated to efficiently be infected with and produce SARS-CoV-2. “To determine whether a drug of interest could help combat infection by SARS-CoV-2, we simply had to expose VeroE6/TMPRSS2 cells to both the drug and SARS-CoV-2 and then observe whether the drug’s presence served to hinder the virus’s efforts to infect cells,” explains Professor Watashi. The researchers used this experimental system to screen a panel of drugs that are already approved for clinical use, including drugs like remdesivir and chloroquine that have already being approved or are being trialed as treatments for COVID-19. In an exciting outcome, the researchers found two drugs that provided effective SARS-CoV-2 suppression: cepharanthine, which is used to treat inflammation, and nelfinavir, which is approved for the treatment of HIV infection. Cepharanthine inhibited the entry of the virus into cells by preventing the virus from binding to a protein on the cell membrane, which it uses as a gateway. In contrast, nelfinavir worked to prevent the virus from replicating inside the cell by inhibiting a protein that the virus relies on for replication. Given that these drugs have distinct antiviral mechanisms, using both of them together could be especially effective for patients, with computational models predicting that combined cepharanthine/nelfinavir therapy can hasten the clearance of SARS-CoV-2 from a patient’s lungs by as few as 4.9 days. So, does this mean we will be seeing these new drugs in COVID-19 treatment centers? Of course, the drug duo isn’t ready to be rolled out into healthcare systems just yet. These findings justify further research into the clinical potential of cepharanthine/nelfinavir therapy, and only following this can we say for sure that it is useful and helpful. Nevertheless, given the ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ever-increasing death toll, the development of cepharanthine/nelfinavir therapy may provide clinicians and patients with a much-needed new treatment option. To read the original article click here.

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FDA Approves Emergency Use of Anti-Malarial Drugs to Treat People Infected with COVID-19

AHA Publisher — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 07:00:47 +0000

Steve Warren via CBN News – The US government is giving reserved approval to two new weapons in the war against the COVID-19 virus, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 2,500 in the US and a total of 35,300 people around the world. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cut the red tape to give limited emergency-use approval to use the oral anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus. In a statement released Sunday night, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced it had received 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine and one million doses of chloroquine donated to a national stockpile of potentially life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies from the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis. The FDA has authorized the drugs “to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with the coronavirus, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.” Clinical trials are still being planned by the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, according to ABC News. There have been questions about the effectiveness of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine since they haven’t gone through official scientific studies. And one shocking case out of Arizona may serve as a warning after an older couple consumed some chloroquine phosphate – an additive used to clean fish tanks. The husband died and his wife was left in critical condition. But France has just given its official approval to use the drug chloroquine to combat coronavirus, so the US isn’t the only country moving ahead with the experimental treatment. Meanwhile, the CEO of the drug company Novartis says hydroxychloroquine is one of the best drugs available to treat the COVID-19 virus. “Pre-clinical studies in animals, as well as the first data from clinical studies, show that hydroxychloroquine kills the coronavirus,” Novartis Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper on Sunday. Hydroxychloroquine, which is also produced by several drug companies, including Novartis’s Sandoz division, is also used in the treatment of arthritis and lupus. “We are working with Swiss hospitals on possible treatment protocols for the clinical use of this drug (against COVID-19), but it is too early to say anything definitive,” added Narasimhan. The drug company had previously promised to give away 130 million individual doses of the drug. “Novartis will work with stakeholders including the World Health Organization to determine the best distribution of the medicine to ensure broad access to patients most in need of this medicine globally,” the company said in a statement on March 20. Research continues on other Novartis drugs as other possible remedies for the coronavirus. These include the multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya and the cancer drug Jakavi. To read the original article click here. For more articles from CBN News click here.

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chloroquine Archives - Amazing Health Advances

The Dream Team: Scientists Find Drug Duo That May Cure COVID-19 Together

FDA Approves Emergency Use of Anti-Malarial Drugs to Treat People Infected with COVID-19