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Research Roundup: A repurposed drug and antibodies for COVID-19 and the impact of blood type

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PATH/Gabe Bienczycki

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week.

June 22, 2020 by Julien Rashid

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.

Dexamethasone, an inexpensive, decades-old drug is showing promise for treating COVID-19, per unpublished, preliminary results from a study called Recovery that was funded by the United Kingdom. The preliminary results indicated that the drug reduced the risk of death for patients on ventilators by 35 percent, those receiving oxygen by 20 percent, and overall mortality by 17 percent. Immediately following the results, the United Kingdom granted approval for use of the drug to treat COVID-19. According to FiercePharma, UK officials have enough dexamethasone stockpiled to treat 200,000 patients. 

A recent study lends support to anecdotal evidence that blood type and genetics may be linked to worse outcomes from COVID-19 illness. Last Wednesday, a team of European researchers published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine indicating that people with type A blood have a 45 percent higher risk of catching COVID-19 and sliding into respiratory failure and people with type O blood have a 35 percent lower risk of developing respiratory failure compared to people with other blood types. Scientists are still unsure why blood type might be correlated with COVID-19 outcomes, but a nascent hypothesis is that it could be linked to blood clotting risk. The researchers also found that a cluster of genes are associated with higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 by 77 percent.

A project led by researchers from Scripps Research, GHTC member IAVI, and the University of California San Diego School of Medicine published research in Science detailing a set of antibodies discovered in recovered COVID-19 patients that provide powerful protection against SARS-CoV-2. In theory, the antibodies could be given to patients who are just developing the illness to prevent progression to severe disease and to protect people who are at higher risk for contracting COVID-19. To discover the antibodies, the scientists isolated more than 1,000 distinct antibody-producing immune cells, obtained genetic sequences from these cells to produce more antibodies, and then tested the antibodies’ effectiveness against blocking the virus in vitro. The researchers discovered several antibodies that, even in small quantities, could block the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, IAVI, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.


Categories: COVID-19, Medicines, NIH, Research Roundup

About the author

Julien RashidGHTC

Julien manages congressional outreach, policy development, and legislative analysis to support the US advocacy work of the coalition. In this capacity, he serves as GHTC’s primary liaison with Congress and helps develop strategies to advance the coalition’s legislative priorities. Before joining the Global Health Technologies Coalition, Julien was an associate at FasterCures, a center of the Milken Institute, where he supported the organization’s programs on economic incentives, health data, and patient-centric biomedical research. Julien graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double major in molecular biology and community and environmental sociology. He also has a certificate (minor) in global health. He is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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June 29, 2020

Research Roundup: A needleless COVID-19 vaccine, vaccine trials begin in Africa, and inhalable remdesivir

Written by Julien Rashid / GHTC
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Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. The US Department of Defense is providing US$71 million for increased production of Inovio Pharmaceutical’s Cellectra devices—small, hand-held tools that are used to deliver Inovio’s vaccine candidate, INO-4800, directly to the skin without the use of needles. The device works by using a small electrical pulse that enables the DNA-based virus to pass into the recipient’s skin. Cellectra operates on AA batteries, and it is designed to "function reliably in challenging environments and can be stockpiled in large quantities without maintenance.” The vaccine, INO-4800, is expected to remain effective for up to one year in room-temperature storage. These durable qualities could make this vaccine system effective for low-resource settings. Inovio expects to begin a phase 2/3 trial in July. On Wednesday, the University of Oxford launched the first clinical trial in Africa of a COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine being evaluated, AZD1222, was invented at the University of Oxford and is being developed in partnership with AstraZeneca. The trial is being conducted in South Africa, which has 120,000 of the continent’s 340,000 total cases. It represents a key moment for a continent that has so far been elbowed out of the global competition for medical supplies during the pandemic. Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Chief John Nkengasong said, “unless we act now, Africa is at risk of being left behind on the global vaccine.” Others noted that several African countries have clinical trial capacities to contribute to global research and development. The University of Oxford is also running trials of AZD1222 in Brazil and Britain.Remdesivir, the first drug to demonstrate a benefit for treating COVID-19, has so far been delivered intravenously but will now be evaluated in an inhalable form in clinical trials. The inhalable version will be delivered via a nebulizer, a tool commonly available in the United States. Scientists at Gilead, remdesivir’s sponsor, hope that the availability of nebulizers will make it easier to use remdesivir at earlier stages of infection, such as when a patient tests positive but is presymptomatic. While delivering remdesivir as an inhalant may help overcome some of the limitations of intravenous delivery, it may also present other issues. Some physicians are worried that using a nebulizer could enable the spread of viral particles, and at improper doses, remdesivir can be toxic.
Eric Sales/ Asian Development Bank
June 15, 2020

Research Roundup: COVID-19 vaccine packaging, trials, and asymptomatic spread

Written by Julien Rashid / GHTC
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Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.The Department of Defense Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) will partner with SiO2, an advanced materials science company, to introduce a novel technology for packaging COVID-19 vaccines and other pharmaceuticals. JPEO-CBRND and BARDA will provide US$143 million in funding to scale production of the company’s new technology that includes a plastic container with a microscopic glass coating. The product is thermal stable (range of -196 C to 121 C), highly durable (able to withstand 1,500 pounds of direct force), and precision molded, making it more dimensionally consistent than glass vials.The vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in partnership with Moderna, will begin phase 3 clinical testing by July, followed in August by Oxford University/AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and in September by Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. All three companies are backed by the US government as part of Operation Warp Speed, and each is testing new technology.On Monday, an official from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that spread of COVID-19 by people who are asymptomatic is “very rare,” but clarified on Tuesday that scientists are actually unsure how frequently asymptomatic spread occurs. The initial comments caused a stir among public health experts, some labelling the comment as miscommunication. Underlying the confusion is that the term “asymptomatic” can mean either people who are presymptomatic or people who develop a full infection without showing symptoms. There is some evidence that fully asymptomatic cases may not be very contagious, while other studies show that patients may be most contagious when they are presymptomatic. Either way, experts note, individuals without symptoms should still be taking precautions.