How sea creature can take on Covid

A CANCER drug derived from a Spanish sea creature is almost 30 times more powerful than the substance being widely used to stop coronavirus spreading in the body, say scientists.

Laboratory tests show that Aplidin, based on a chemical extracted from the Ibizan sea squirt Aplidium albicans, is highly potent in halting SARSCoV-2 infection.

The drug, manufactured by Spanish firm PharmaMar and also known as plitidepsin, is already used to fight the blood cancer multiple myeloma in Australia and is going through an approvals process for the same use in Europe.

Researchers found t hat it reduced the spread by 99 per cent in mice, and told the journal Science that the compound is the most powerful Covid-19 antiviral yet discovered.

‘We believe our data and the initial positive results from PharmaMar’s clinical trial suggests t hat pl i t i depsin s hould be strongly considered for expanded clinical trials for the treatment of Covid-19,’ they wrote.

Pablo Aviles, head of non-clinical toxicology at PharmaMar, said: ‘When we infected animals and we treated them with the adequate dose of plitidepsin, an extraordinary reduction of the viral load is produced.’

The drug works by stopping virus particles interacting with a human protein called eEF1A, which they use to replicate.

Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug made by US firm Gilead, works in a similar way. It has been approved for use to fight Covid19 in the US, UK, Europe and elsewhere and was given to Donald Trump when he was ill with the virus.

But the authors of the Science paper say PharmaMar’s drug is 27.5 times more potent, while another study claimed it was also highly effective against the so-called ‘Kent strain’ of SARSCoV-2. PharmaMar is in talks with regulators to fast- track human trials of the drug.