Novel preclinical therapies for COVID-19: Data Byte
Behind the many repurposed agents being tested for use in COVID-19 are at least 137 preclinical programs that were designed for the indication from the start.
About 55% of the programs are “neutralizing” therapies, meaning they prevent the virus’ spike protein from binding its receptor on host cells. The vast majority of these (63/76 programs) are antibody therapies, many of which derive from the blood of recovered patients. The first such mAb therapy to receive emergency use authorization, bamlanivimab from Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY), was pulled from the U.S. market last week as monotherapy due to its lack of potency against rising viral variants, highlighting the urgent need for newer therapies to demonstrate efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 variants. ...