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Göttingen researchers identify existing drug with potential to treat Covid-19

220 points| mpweiher | 6 years ago |dpz.eu | reply

69 comments

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[+] DuskStar|6 years ago|reply
If it's not in clinical trials yet, it's not worth talking about. Pretty sure there's a few dozen in the same category as this drug.

EDIT: I don't mean that this isn't already approved for human use. But there's a whole list [0] of existing drugs being tested, and a lot of them are effective in vitro.

0: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41587-020-00003-1

[+] mkagenius|6 years ago|reply
> If it's not in clinical trials yet

Only if its harmful. What if the drug has been in use for other disease with known side effects, will we still wait for clinical trials?

[+] jldugger|6 years ago|reply
Presumably it's already made it through many stages of clinical trials if we're calling it an existing drug, which means we can skip straight to human trials on infected patients.
[+] dboreham|6 years ago|reply
Ianad but presumably when there's a significant risk of crashing the world economy on the other side of the decision, rules on drug safety processes may get changed.
[+] benblu|6 years ago|reply
The nature article makes it sound like a lot of the options listed are being tested because there's some evidence of some effectiveness Vs in the story OP posted, it sounds like the mechanism is much better understood.
[+] linuxdude314|6 years ago|reply
Chloroquine Phosphate has also been shown to have high efficacy and has already been tested in over 500 patients in China.

Fortunately it’s a drug that’s been around for 50+ years originally for malaria prophylaxis and is easy enough to synthesize.

The downside, is that it is unlikely to be found in the US since we don’t deal with malaria very much.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/32075365/

[+] mirthflat83|6 years ago|reply
It’s also sometimes used for autoimmune conditions so it isn’t too hard to find
[+] shrubble|6 years ago|reply
Quinine is found in the Italian soft drink Brio.

I used to be able to buy it when I lived near Toronto Canada ; but don't know where it is currently available in the USA and Canada.

[+] fspeech|6 years ago|reply
At the dosage recommended here one could suffer acute drug toxicity. The national guideline has since moderated the prescribed doses.
[+] theothermkn|6 years ago|reply
Some in here have been asking about risks and side effects. A quick google search turned up:

https://www.practo.com/medicine-info/camostat-2499-api

I'm just a layperson, but this looks like a run-of-the-mill prescription drug. Hope this helps to allay some concerns and keep the signal-to-noise ratio higher.

[+] Yoric|6 years ago|reply
Well, testing is still needed to determine the appropriate dosage. If the dosage is lower or identical to the prescription drug, it's all good. If it ends up being much higher, this may be a big problem.
[+] fspeech|6 years ago|reply
The critical question here is the same with any other candidate drug: what is the level of concentration needed to achieve the desired antiviral effect and can it be safely reached at the targeted tissue?
[+] rv-de|6 years ago|reply
Any qualified opinions on Gilead and Remdesivir? Bought stocks just to see it decline 15%. Now its price is improving again.
[+] Reason077|6 years ago|reply
I used to jog past Gilead's offices in Hayes (West London) all the time. Always reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale.
[+] m3kw9|6 years ago|reply
If it needs to be prescribed it needs to past trials, as with half dozen drugs already identified
[+] 3fe9a03ccd14ca5|6 years ago|reply
> Moreover, their study suggests that antibody responses raised against SARS-CoV could at least partially protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Interesting idea. Infect everyone with the “mild” version of SARS to protect against the severe one.

[+] mytailorisrich|6 years ago|reply
SARS (SARS-CoV) is more lethal than Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2)...

You certainly don't want to infect anyone with SARS!

[+] bryant|6 years ago|reply
> Interesting idea. Infect everyone with the “mild” version of SARS to protect against the severe one.

Two notes:

1. SARS-CoV is the 2003 strain, which is generally accepted as being the more severe - yet more difficult to transmit - strain of coronavirus. So in this case (unless I'm misunderstanding), people who caught and survived the more severe SARS-CoV in 2003-2004 are less likely to be as affected by the milder SARS-CoV-2 strain. Worth noting that the population of people infected by SARS-CoV is not all that high, so the value isn't so much that there's a population protected from SARS-CoV-2 as it's that there's enough of a similarity between the two strains that we could learn a few useful things about treating the latter.

2. The model you described, using a milder agent to protect against a severe one, is the original concept behind vaccines, done by Dr. Edward Jenner with Cowpox to protect against Smallpox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine

[+] SlipperySlope|6 years ago|reply
Essentially... "“We have tested SARS-CoV-2 isolated from a patient and found that camostat mesilate blocks entry of the virus into lung cells,” says Markus Hoffmann, the lead author of the study. Camostat mesilate is a drug approved in Japan for use in pancreatic inflammation. “Our results suggest that camostat mesilate might also protect against COVID-19,” says Markus Hoffmann. “This should be investigated in clinical trials.”
[+] tus88|6 years ago|reply
Vaccine is better.
[+] vikramkr|6 years ago|reply
And not having the disease exist is best. We do our best with what we've got and keep pushing every line of attack. Something is better than nothing.