Recent study shows a treatment for COVID-19 derived from a rare sea animal and historically used for cancer treatment is found to be more efficient by 27.5 times compared to the popular COVID-19 drug remdesivir of Gilead Science.
According to an Observer report, the study published in the Science Journal on Monday, said that the treatment identified as Aplidin or Plitidepsin is developed by PharmaMr, a Spanish drug company.
The drug has gained clinical approval in certain countries including Australia for treating a form of bone marrow cancer also identified as multiple myeloma.
Furthermore, the medication was identified as a probable treatment for COVID-19 during the first quarter of 2020 by a team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco.
From that time, it has completed clinical trials, both phase 1 and 2, and it is expected entry to phase 3 clinical trial prior to seeking approval from a regulatory body.
Aplidin
Aplidin is derived from sea squirts also known as "ascidian." Sea squirts are a type of marine animal with some primitive vertebrate characteristics and tubular opening that enable them to "draw in and squeeze out water."
This specific sea squirt type used to make Aplidin, also known as Aplidium ablicans, exists only in the waters surrounding the Spanish island of Ibiza.
The effect of the discovery of Aplidin when it comes to treating COVID-19 was not a consequence or outcome of random testing, like many of the laboratory tests during the early days of this global health crisis.
UC San Francisco Scientists discovered the drug treatment by searching for available cures that would shield the specific human proteins which the coronavirus is targeting.
Data-Driven, Instead of Random Screening
Molecular biologist Nevan Krogan from the UC San Francisco said, what they found was "data-driven instead of just randomly screening drugs."
Krogan, also a lead author of the research in Science added, "If you target a human protein that the virus needs," the latter will never "mutate away from being" dependent on that particular human protein.
It is not typical to test cancer drugs on viruses partially because of their possible danger to human cells. Luckily, no serious adverse effects have been reported and recorded from Aplidin trials. The drug has been tried in a few dozen COVID-19 patients in Spain
Krogan noted too, that COVID-19 patients need considerably lower doses of Aplidin, as well as shorter period of treatments compared to what cancer patients need.
Whether the medication can be introduced as a substitute to existing treatments for COVID-19 relies on the extensive phase 3 trial.
However, one limitation of Aplidin is that, it can only be given at a hospital, possibly making it difficult to reach a large base of patients.
A related study last week, that has yet to be peer-reviewed on Aplidin by researchers at University College London showed that the cancer drug is equally efficient at combating the new COVID-19 strain recently discovered in the United Kingdom.
Laboratory tests showed that his drug worked when used against "two different human lung and epithelial cells" infested with the new viral variant.
Check out more news and information on COVID-19 on Science Times.
