Covid fight gets boost
Medicines could be quickly adapted
AUSTRALIAN researchers have identified 12 medicines already approved for use in treating other conditions that could quickly be adapted to fight Covid.
They include common antihistamine medications, drugs used to prevent nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing chemotherapy, an antidepressant and three cancer medications.
The scientists are seeking $1.5m in funding to test three of the most promising drugs against Covid in a potentially game-changing phase 1 human clinical trial.
Despite the speedy development of vaccines, more than 13,000 Australians died of the virus this year and new treatments are desperately needed.
Although new Pfizer medication Paxlovid cuts hospitalisation rates by 89 per cent, it can’t be widely used because it interacts with many other medications.
Another anti-viral, Lagevrio, was originally found to be 30 per cent effective at preventing hospitalisation and death but research suggests it is not that effective against the latest Covid variants.
A handful of Covid remedies called monoclonal antibodies that were developed to treat the original Covid virus are also not as effective against new variants.
The new research, published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences, was conducted using a $1m grant from Australia’s Medical Research Future Fund.
The team of scientists was led by Australian researcher Seshadri Vasan, honorary professor at the UK’s University of York, and Monash University’s Natalie Trevaskis.
They looked at 7817 FDAapproved drugs and applied a variety of filters to identify those most likely to work against Covid.
They found more than 200 possibilities but most were ruled out because they could not be used in pregnant women or were unsafe in certain patients.
“Although we haven’t quite said X marks the spot, we have narrowed down the search area to the top 200 or so candidates, for ourselves and fellow researchers,” Professor Vasan said.
Associate Professor Trevaskis said: “All of the medicines that made it to the (final) top 12 were used by lots of people every day in Australia in the US.”
Identifying medications that were already approved for other conditions meant they could quickly be put to use without the need for lengthy animal trials.
The study reviewed all major studies around the world where existing medications had been tested against Covid in a laboratory dish, to see if they stopped the virus replicating.
Professor Trevaskis said even though the 12 medicines the research identified showed potential in a lab dish against Covid, this did not mean they would work in humans.