An oral drug tested at UNC could be used to prevent and treat COVID-19 infections
A drug tested at UNC-Chapel Hill is “extremely effective” at both preventing and treating COVID-19 infections, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature, a leading scientific journal.
Scientists from the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health tested the drug, EIDD-2801 (molnupiravir), on human lung tissue that had been implanted into mice. The drug prevents the virus from reproducing.
“This is something that is giving us hope that there might be an alternative that can be available in addition to the vaccine to help with the pandemic,” J. Victor Garcia, the director of UNC’s International Center for the Advancement of Translational Science and the paper’s senior author, told The News & Observer.
When EIDD-2801 treatment started 24 hours after COVID-19 exposure, lung samples treated with the drug had one infectious particle for every 25,000 in samples left untreated. When the treatment started 48 hours after exposure, there were four infectious particles for every 100 in an untreated sample.
If the treatment took place 12 hours before COVID-19 exposure, researchers found that it neutralized all but one infectious COVID-19 particle out of every 100,000.
“It pretty much inhibits infection,” Angela Wahl, the center’s assistant director and a co-first author of the paper, told The News & Observer.
The results “indicate the EIDD-2801 may not only be efficacious in treating and preventing COVID-19, it could also prove to be highly effective against future coronavirus outbreaks as well,” Ralph Baric, the William Kenan Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology at UNC, said in a prepared statement.
EIDD-2801 is taken orally twice a day. While other therapeutics like remdesivir are administered via an IV, EIDD-2801 can be taken anywhere.
“It doesn’t have to be refrigerated, it doesn’t have to be administered in a health care setting,” Garcia said. “It’s a pill.”
Doesn’t replace vaccine
EIDD-2801 does not take the place of COVID-19 vaccines, the scientists said. Garcia compared it to prescribing Tamiflu to someone who has been exposed to the flu.
“It will not offer you long-term protection against infection,” Garcia said.
Still, Garcia added, the drug could be very useful in settings like nursing homes where the infection can spread rapidly and have a large impact. Prescribing the drug to someone who has been infected could help significantly curb the course of their illness, while it could also be administered to those around them to help prevent infection.
The drug was initially developed by scientists at Drug Innovations at Emory, a nonprofit company owned by Emory University. In March 2020, it was licensed by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, a Florida-based company that initially planned to study its use in treating the flu, according to a press release.
In May 2020, Merck reached an agreement with Ridgeback to partner on the drug’s development. Merck is conducting Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials on human subjects, some of which could be completed as early as May. Ridgeback is also conducting Phase 2 clinical trials, according to a spokeswoman.
The UNC scientists tested EIDD-2801 on lung tissue that had been implanted onto the backs of immunodeficient mice, like a tumor, and then infected after a few weeks. From there, the samples can be removed and studied further to see how the virus is replicating.
Baric, one of the country’s leading coronavirus researchers, told The News & Observer the method could be used during other outbreaks to determine what cells a virus attacks and how it works.
“It’s very broad technology that can be applied in an outbreak setting to look at relative risk,” Baric said, adding that the tissue doesn’t necessarily have to come from the lung, but could be from other organs that are susceptible to infection.
In addition to COVID-19, Wahl and the team found that other coronaviruses like SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and two viruses that have been found in bats all replicated in the lung tissue. All four diseases replicating indicates that the method used to evaluate EIDD-2801 could help researchers more quickly evaluate how future coronaviruses infect humans and aid in the development of drugs to help lessen the impact of those diseases.
“It could really speed up the development and approval of antivirals in the future,” Wahl said.
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 1:11 PM with the headline "An oral drug tested at UNC could be used to prevent and treat COVID-19 infections."