Licensed drug could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection by up to 70 per cent,
lab study reveals

Date:
August 6, 2021
Source:
University of Birmingham
Summary:
A licensed drug normally used to treat abnormal levels of fatty
substances in the blood could reduce infection caused by the
SARS-CoV- 2 virus by up to 70 per cent, a new study in the
laboratory reveals.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A licensed drug normally used to treat abnormal levels of fatty substances
in the blood could reduce infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus by
up to 70 per cent, reveals a study in the laboratory by an international collaboration of researchers.


==========================================================================
The research team, led by the University of Birmingham and Keele
University in the UK and the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Italy,
has demonstrated that fenofibrate and its active form (fenofibric acid)
can significantly reduce SARS-COV-2 infection in human cells in the
laboratory. Importantly, reduction of infection was obtained using concentrations of the drug which are safe and achievable using the
standard clinical dose of fenofibrate. Fenofibrate, which is approved
for use by most countries in the world including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), is an oral drug currently used to treat conditions such
as high levels of cholesterol and lipids (fatty substances) in the blood.

The team is now calling for clinical trials to test the drug in
hospitalised COVID-19 patients, to be carried out in addition to two
clinical trials also currently underway in such patients in research
being led by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in the US
and Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infects the host through
an interaction between the Spike protein on the surface of the virus
and the ACE2 receptor protein on host cells. In this study, responding
to the global COVID- 19 pandemic, the team tested a panel of already
licensed drugs -- including fenofibrate -- to identify candidates that
disrupt ACE2 and Spike interactions.

Having identified fenofibrate as a candidate, they then tested the
efficacy of the drug in reducing infection in cells in the laboratory
using the original strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated in 2020. They
found fenofibrate reduced infection by up to 70%. Additional unpublished
data also indicates that fenofibrate is equally effective against the
newer variants of SARS-CoV- 2 including the alpha and beta variants and research is ongoing into its efficacy in the delta variant.

Corresponding author Dr Farhat Khanim, of the University of Birmingham in
the UK, explained: "The development of new more infectious SARS-CoV-2
variants has resulted in a rapid expansion in infection rates and
deaths in several countries around the world, especially the UK, US and
Europe. Whilst vaccine programmes will hopefully reduce infection rates
and virus spread in the longer term, there is still an urgent need to
expand our arsenal of drugs to treat SARS-CoV-2-positive patients." Co-corresponding author Dr Alan Richardson, of Keele University in
the UK, added: "Whilst in some countries vaccination programmes are
progressing at speed, vaccine uptake rates are variable and for most low
middle income countries, significant proportions of the population are
unlikely to be vaccinated until 2022. Furthermore, whilst vaccination has
been shown to reduce infection rates and severity of disease, we are as
yet unsure of the strength and duration of the response. Therapies are
still urgently needed to manage COVID-19 patients who develop symptoms
or require hospitalisation." Co-author Dr Elisa Vicenzi, of the San
Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, Italy, said: "Our data indicates
that fenofibrate may have the potential to reduce the severity of
COVID-19 symptoms and also virus spread. Given that fenofibrate is an
oral drug which is very cheap and available worldwide, together with
its extensive history of clinical use and its good safety profile,
our data has global implications -- especially in low-middle income
countries and in those individuals for whom vaccines are not recommended
or suitable such as children, those with hyper-immune disorders and those
using immune-suppressants." First author Dr Scott Davies, also of the University of Birmingham, concluded: "We now urgently need further
clinical studies to establish whether fenofibrate is a potential
therapeutic agent to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection." The research,
published today (Aug 6) in Frontiers in Pharmacology,was also carried
out in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and
the University of Liverpool in the UK.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Birmingham. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Scott P. Davies, Courtney J. Mycroft-West, Isabel Pagani, Harriet J.

Hill, Yen-Hsi Chen, Richard Karlsson, Ieva Bagdonaite, Scott
E. Guimond, Zania Stamataki, Marcelo Andrade De Lima, Jeremy
E. Turnbull, Zhang Yang, Elisa Vicenzi, Mark A. Skidmore,
Farhat L. Khanim, Alan Richardson. The Hyperlipidaemic Drug
Fenofibrate Significantly Reduces Infection by SARS- CoV-2 in
Cell Culture Models. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2021; 12 DOI:
10.3389/fphar.2021.660490 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210806104405.htm

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