Drug Used For Over A Decade To Treat Cancer Could Cure Covid-19

A drug that has been used for more than a decade to treat cancer could cure people with Covid-19, according to a new study.

The drug, called pralatrexate, is a chemotherapy drug that was originally developed to treat lymphomas – tumors that originate in the glands.

Chinese researchers have found that pralatrexate outperforms remdesivir, which is currently the main antiviral drug used to treat patients with Covid-19.

Pralatrexate was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2009 for patients with terminal illness despite its toxicity.

Adverse effects of pralatrexate include fatigue, nausea, and mucositis – inflammation and ulceration of the mucous membranes lining the digestive tract.

However, according to the researchers, reusing pralatrexate in a way that eliminates its side effects shows a lot of potential.

“Identifying effective drugs that can treat Covid-19 is important and urgent, especially approved drugs that can be immediately tested in clinical trials,” say the study’s authors, led by Dr. Haiping Zhang of the Institutes of Technology advanced from Shenzhen, China.

“Our study found that pralatrexate is able to potently inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication with stronger inhibitory activity than remdesivir under the same experimental conditions.

In the aftermath of the global Covid-19 epidemic, researchers were inspired by the idea of ​​reusing existing drugs that were originally developed to treat other conditions.

Artificial intelligence can help identify these drugs by simulating how different drugs would interact with SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19.

To facilitate virtual screening for existing drugs, Zhang and his colleagues combined several computer techniques that simulate drug-virus interactions.

They used this hybrid approach to screen 1,906 existing drugs for their potential ability to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication by targeting a viral protein called RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP).

RdRP is an essential protein encoded in the genomes of all RNA-containing viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2.

The new screening approach identified four promising drugs, which were then tested against SARS-CoV-2 in lab experiments.

Two of the drugs, pralatrexate and azithromycin, were successful in inhibiting virus replication.

Other laboratory experiments have shown that pralatrexate inhibits viral replication more strongly than remdesivir, suggesting that the former could potentially be reused for Covid.

However, this chemotherapy drug can cause significant side effects and, as it is used for people with terminal lymphoma, its immediate use for Covid-19 patients is not guaranteed.

Despite this, the results support the use of the new screening strategy to identify drugs that could be changed, according to the team.

“We have demonstrated the value of our new hybrid approach which combines deep learning technologies with more traditional simulations of molecular dynamics,” said Dr. Zhang.

The researchers, who published their work in PLOS Computational Biology, are currently developing additional computational methods to generate new molecular structures that could be developed into new drugs to treat Covid-19.

The study follows some general skepticism about the effectiveness of remdesivir, which was initially developed to treat hepatitis C and then reused as a potential treatment for Ebola.

After disappointing results in treating Ebola in 2014, remdesivir was tested in the early stages of this year’s pandemic.

There is no consensus on its effectiveness, with clinical trials showing mixed results.

The NHS has approved its use on Covid-19 patients in hopes it may help, but they are already being forced to ration the drug, which costs £ 2,400 per course ($ 3,120).

In November, the World Health Organization (WHO) said doctors should not treat coronavirus patients with remdesivir “ regardless of their medical condition. ”

Officials at the time said there was ‘no evidence’ it increases people’s chances of surviving the disease or prevents them from getting sick enough to need mechanical ventilation. ” .

They also warned that there is a “ possibility of significant damage ” when using the investigational drug Ebola, as it can cause kidney and liver damage in some patients.

In December, however, a team of British experts reported in Nature Communications that remdesivir could be a very effective Covid-19 treatment “for some patients”.

He had helped cure a 31-year-old patient who suffered from a rare reaction to the disease, due to a genetic condition called XLA, which prevented him from making antibodies to fight infection.

“ Different studies have supported or questioned the effectiveness of remdesivir, but some of those conducted during the first wave of infection may not be optimal for evaluating its antiviral properties, ” the study author said. , Dr James Thaventhiran, MRC Toxicology Unit, University of Cambridge. .