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Interferon Beta reduced risk of severe Covid by 80%

Welcome to the Era of the Anti-Virals. They’re everywhere.

A legacy of the coronavirus pandemic is the dawn of new ways to stop viruses. Here’s another new (old) one — it’s only a small trial, but if it can stop 4 out of 5 people developing the severe form of the disease it will be a gamechanger. If this gets similar numbers on larger trials, then we still need mass production. But national policies will swing on a dime if a safe drug with this much potential appears.

After Coronavirus we might not be so content to accept the annual seasonal virus scourge.

Postenote: These are preliminary results, not a large trial, but at least it is placebo controlled and randomized.

Breakthrough’ treatment slashes virus death risk: study

by Patrick Galey, MedicalXpress

In a randomised trial of 100 patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, those who received an inhaled formula of the protein interferon beta were at 79 percent lower risk of developing severe disease compared to those who received a placebo.

They were also more than twice as likely to make a full recovery compared with the control group.

The firm behind the treatment, known as SNG001, said the preliminary results suggested “a major breakthrough” in the pandemic.

Interferon beta is a natural cytokine — our bodies produce it during infections, and some think that older people are just not producing enough of it.  We may be just replacing something that was meant to be there, or indeed we might be replacing something that the virus has suppressed.

Interferon beta is a naturally occurring protein, which orchestrates the body’s antiviral responses. There is evidence that deficiency in IFN-beta production by the lung could explain the enhanced susceptibility of these at-risk patient groups to developing severe lower respiratory tract (lung) disease during respiratory viral infections. Furthermore, viruses, including coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV, have evolved mechanisms which suppress endogenous IFN-beta production, thereby helping the virus evade the innate immune system.

— Uni oif Southhampton.

The current market for Interferon beta is already $5 billion a year. At the moment the cost is reportedly about $7,000 USD per 30 mcg vial. (Not that I can tell you what size the normal dose is).

AIDS wasn’t solved by a vaccine, but by three anti-virals. Unlike AIDS, coronavirus patients won’t need to take the medicine for years. Thankfully RNA viruses don’t insert themselves into our genes the way retroviruses like AIDS do.

It’s possible viruses may find a way to adapt and grow resistant to individual antivirals which is why AIDS patients take the triple cocktail.

REFERENCES

A Randomised Double-blind Placebo-controlled Trial to Determine the Safety and Efficacy of Inhaled SNG001 (IFN-β1a for Nebulisation) for the Treatment of Patients With Confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Infection, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04385095

 

 

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