Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, the University of Hong Kong, Scripps Research, UC San Diego School of Medicine, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and UCLA have identified 30 existing drugs that stop the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Almost all of the drugs are entirely different from those currently being tested in clinical trials, and weren\u2019t previously known to hold promise for Covid-19 treatment. The new candidates expand the number of \u201cshots on goal\u201d for a potential Covid-19 treatment and could reach patients faster than drugs that are created from scratch. The study was placed on bioRxiv \u2013 https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2020.04.16.044016v1<\/link> \u2013 an open-access distribution service for preprints of life science research.
\n\u201cWe believe this is one of the first comprehensive drug screens using the live SARS-CoV-2 virus, and our hope is that one or more of these drugs will save lives while we wait for a vaccine for Covid-19,\u201d said Sumit Chanda, Ph.D., director of the Immunity and Pathogenesis Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys and senior author of the study. \u201cMany drugs identified in this study \u2013 most of which are new to the Covid-19 research community \u2013 can begin clinical trials immediately or in a few months after additional testing.\u201d
\nThe drugs were identified by screening more than 12,000 drugs from the ReFRAME drug repurposing collection \u2013 a library of existing drugs that have been approved by the FDA for other diseases or have been tested extensively for human safety. ReFRAME was created by Scripps Research with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate efforts to fight deadly diseases. Every compound was tested against the live SARS-CoV-2 virus, isolated from patients in Washington State and China, and the final 30 drugs were selected based on their ability to stop the virus\u2019s growth.
\n\u201cFor us, the starting point for finding any new antiviral drug is to measure its ability to block viral replication in the lab,\u201d says Chanda. \u201cSince the drugs we identified in this study have already been tested in humans and proven safe, we can leapfrog over the more than half decade of studies normally required to get approval for human use.\u201d
\nHighlights of the scientists\u2019 discoveries follow. Each drug or experimental compound requires further evaluation in clinical trials to prove its effectiveness in treating people with Covid-19 before it can be used broadly.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the extensive data in this study, we believe the four drugs described above\u2014apilimod, MLN-3897, VBY-825 and ONO 5334 \u2013 represent the best new approaches for a near-term Covid-19 treatment,\u201d says Chanda. \u201cHowever, we believe that all 30 drug candidates should be fully explored, as they were clearly active and effective at halting viral replication in our tests.\u201d
\n\u201cWe have chosen to release these findings to the scientific and medical community now to help address the current global health emergency,\u201d Chanda continues. \u201cThe data from this drug screen is a treasure trove; and we will continue to mine the data from this analysis, with a goal to find additional candidate therapies \u2013 and combinations of drugs \u2013 as they are identified.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, the University of Hong Kong, Scripps Research, UC San Diego School of Medicine, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and UCLA have identified 30 existing drugs that stop the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Almost all of the drugs are entirely different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corona-news","category-e-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3931,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/3931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}