A team of UCSF researchers has discovered a promising candidate to help fight COVID-19.
The research, published Monday, found that anti-cancer drug Aplidin was about 30 times more potent than remdesivir.
Dr. Nevan Krogan, Director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at UCSF and the leader of the research, said on KCBS Radio’s "Ask An Expert" that the team took a different approach than other groups, who try to find drugs that actually attack the viral proteins.
"What we’ve been trying to do is to get the repertoire of the human proteins that the virus needs to infect our cells, and then try to target the human proteins," he said. "Through drug repurposing, we wanted to see if any drugs off the shelf could be used to ultimately combat COVID-19."
Dr. Krogan told KCBS Radio that they identified over 70 drugs, 20 of which are in clinical trials right now.
He is particularly excited about Aplidin.
"It’s actually the most potent drug that we’ve seen," he noted.
The company that makes the drug, Pharmamar, just finished Phase 2 clinical trials of Aplidin.
"We’re hoping now, based on our work that just came out this week, they’re going to start a Phase 3 trial very soon, both in Europe and the United States," Dr. Krogan said.
He added that the drug would work against the new COVID-19 variants that were just discovered in the U.S. Aplidin was originally made from the sea squirt, a sea creature found exclusively off the coast of Spain, but is now synthesized.
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