Plitidepsin, an antitumor drug, is 27.5 times more effective against the new coronavirus than the antiviral remdesivir in cell cultures and mice, according to data published this Monday in the journal Science. The results indicate that the drug developed by the Spanish PharmaMar could be a promising therapeutic candidate for Covid-19. The Spanish drug Aplidine is much more potent than remdesivir against covid
The team behind the new research published this week has been led by Spanish virologist Adolfo García Sastre, from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. The group has found that plitidepsin treatment reduces the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in human cells.
The results also showed the efficacy of the drug, whose trade name is Aplidine, in reducing the replication of the virus in living organisms. This reduced the viral load by 99% in the lungs of two mouse models, an effect that was accompanied by a decrease in lung inflammation.
The replication of SARS-CoV-2 in the lungs is precisely the one that leads to inflammatory, innate and adaptive immune responses that cause significant damage to host tissue.
Plitidepsin does not attack the virus directly, but exerts its antiviral activity by inhibiting the eEF1A protein. The drug prevents the virus from replicating inside the human cell by attaching itself to it and blocking it. This inhibits the ability of the coronavirus to spread through the body.
This protein had already been identified in previous studies as a candidate for playing a role in the viral life cycle of SARS-CoV-2. Now, its role as a drug target for the inhibition of virus replication is confirmed.
The authors of the new study note that an antiviral targeting the body like this offers protection against natural mutations, such as the variant recently discovered in the United Kingdom, to which virus-targeted therapies and vaccines are more susceptible. Research from the group still under review supports this claim.
The results of the new publication complement the phase I / II clinical trial carried out by PharmaMar in Spanish hospitals where the efficacy of the drug in improving severe covid cases was shown.
The researchers saw in that study that the drug was able to reduce the viral load in the blood. The decrease was accompanied by a decrease in inflammation parameters, as occurs in the animal models of the current publication.
„We believe that our data and the initial positive results from the PharmaMar clinical trial suggest that plitidepsin should be seriously considered for expanded clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19,“ the authors write in Science. The pharmaceutical company plans to start phase III trials.
Plitidepsin would also be a potential candidate for consideration in combination therapy with remdesivir. The team’s analyzes of the joint effect of the Spanish drug with the antiviral show an additive effect of the former on the latter.
Remdesivir, as well as dexamethasone, were approved for emergency use against COVID. However, remdesivir, the first to get the green light, has shown limited efficacy and dexamethasone is a steroid that does not have the ability to inhibit the replication of the coronavirus.
