news:
From a rare marine sea squirt found only in the waters around the Spanish island of Ibiza comes a potential COVID-19 treatment called Aplidin that researchers say has proven 27.5 times more effective than the well-known remdesivir in human cells in the lab.
The finding, reported Monday by an international team in the journal Science, comes at a time when potential treatments have been overshadowed by the U.S. vaccination campaign, now trying to recover from a slower-than-expected start.
A related preprint that has yet to be peer-reviewed says that tests have shown the drug is equally effective against the highly infectious new variant of the virus discovered recently in the United Kingdom.
https://observer.com/2021/01/aplidin-covid-drug-cancer-treatment/amp/
An unexpected COVID-19 drug derived from a rare sea animal and historically used to treat cancer is found to be 27.5 times more effective than the Gilead Sciences’ popular coronavirus drug remdesivir, a study published in the journal Science on Monday revealed.
Science:
Plitidepsin has potent preclinical efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 by targeting the host protein eEF1A
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/01/22/science.abf4058
Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins interact with the eukaryotic translation machinery and inhibitors of translation have potent antiviral effects. Here we report that the drug plitidepsin (aplidin), which has limited clinical approval, possesses antiviral activity (IC90 = 0.88 nM) 27.5-fold more potent than remdesivir against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, with limited toxicity in cell culture. Through the use of a drug resistant mutant, we show that the antiviral activity of plitidepsin against SARS-CoV-2 is mediated through inhibition of the known target eEF1A. We demonstrate the in vivo efficacy of plitidepsin treatment in two mouse models of SARS-CoV-2 infection with a reduction of viral replication in the lungs by two orders of magnitude using prophylactic treatment. Our results indicate that plitidepsin is a promising therapeutic candidate for COVID-19.
Clinical trial:
PharmaMar plots Phase III trial after Aplidin shows promise in COVID-19
