Scientists are hopeful that a new drug called EIDD-2801 could change the way doctors treat COVID-19. The drug shows promise in reducing lung damage, has finished testing in mice and will soon move to human clinical trials.
As of April 6, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 1.3 million people with COVID-19 and caused more than 75,000 deaths in a worldwide pandemic. Currently, no antiviral drugs have been approved to treat SARS-CoV-2 or any of the other coronaviruses that cause human disease.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health are playing a key role in the development and testing of EIDD-2801. Virologists are working with colleagues at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and with George Painter, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory and director of the Emory Institute for Drug Development, where EIDD-2801 was discovered.
The results of the team’s most recent study were published by the journal Science Translational Medicine. The paper includes data from cultured human lung cells infected with SARS-CoV-2, as well as mice infected with the related coronaviruses SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.
The study found that, when used as a prophylactic, EIDD-2801 can prevent severe lung injury in infected mice. EIDD-2801 is an orally available form of the antiviral compound EIDD-1931; it can be taken as a pill and can be properly absorbed to travel to the lungs.
When given as a treatment 12 or 24 hours after infection has begun, EIDD-2801 can reduce the degree of lung damage and weight loss in mice. This window of opportunity is expected to be longer in humans, because the period between coronavirus disease onset and death is generally extended in humans compared to mice.
Compared with other potential COVID-19 treatments that must be administered intravenously, EIDD-2801 can be delivered by mouth as a pill. In addition to ease of treatment, this offers a potential advantage for treating less-ill patients or for prophylaxis — for example, in a nursing home where many people have been exposed but are not yet sick.
Clinical studies of EIDD-2801 in humans are expected to begin later this spring. If they are successful, the drug could not only be used to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2, but also could control future outbreaks of other emerging coronaviruses.
