Drug cuts death risk in patients who have COVID-19

An experimental drug initially developed to fight cancer cut the risk of death for people hospitalized with COVID by half, according to a study published Wednesday.

The drug, sabizabulin, seemed to be more effective than others that have been authorized for severely ill COVID patients. Veru, a company in Miami that developed the drug, has applied to the Food and Drug Administration for an emergency authorization of its use. That would potentially add a new weapon to the modest arsenal available to hospitalized patients, experts said.

“This looks super impressive,” said Dr. Ilan Schwartz, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alberta who was not involved in the study. “We have a small number of treatments for patients with severe disease that improve mortality, but another treatment that can further reduce deaths would be very welcome.”

But Schwartz cautioned that the trial was relatively small, with just 134 patients receiving the drug. “Overall, I think this is very exciting, although I would welcome larger and independent confirmatory studies,” he said.

Sabizabulin blocks cells from building microtubules, critical molecular cables that shuttle material from one part of the cell’s interior to another.

The drug was originally developed by researchers at the University of Tennessee to fight cancer because fastgrowing tumor cells depend on the microtubules for their rapid growth.

Two years ago, researchers at Veru tried sabizabulin on COVID. They suspected the drug might prevent viral replication, which depends on the microtubule network to bring together the pieces of new viruses.

They also hypothesized that the drug would help COVID patients fight potentially life-threatening lung inflammation. This immune response starts when cells recognize they are infected and release alarm-signal proteins into their surroundings. The cells have to push the alarm molecules along their microtubules to get the word out.

In the latest trial, 134 volunteers received sabizabulin and 70 a placebo. Over the course of 60 days, the death rates of the two groups were significantly different: 45.1 percent of the placebo group died, compared with just 20.2 percent of those who received the new drug. That difference translated to a 55.2 percent reduction in the risk of death.

Dr. David Boulware, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, cautioned that the large number of deaths in the placebo group could be a sign the study was too small to draw firm conclusions.

“The 45 percent mortality rate in the control group jumps out at me as rather high,” he said.

New York Times file photo The drug was initially used to fight the spread of cancer cells but has worked on COVID, as well.