New developments in potential "specific drugs" for new crowns: masitinib+S2H97

Author: Chuxin

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) at the end of 2019, it has continued to spread globally.

In response to COVID-19, in addition to speeding up vaccination, it is also very urgent to find safer and effective treatment options

For the prevention and treatment of new crowns, "new crown vaccine + oral anti-new crown drugs" is also a better choice, which is more convenient and has lower social cost.

Old medicine and new use--masitinib (masitinib)

Masitinib is an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor that can competitively inhibit the activity of 3CLpro, the main protease of the new coronavirus, thereby inhibiting the replication of the new coronavirus

In vivo experiments in mice have shown that masitinib treatment can reduce the titers of the new coronavirus in the lungs and nose of mice to less than 1% of the original in just 6 days, and lung inflammation has also been reduced

This masitinib study used the strategy of "old drugs and new use"-scientists first screened 1,900 drugs that have been in clinical use, looking for drugs that can inhibit common coronavirus infections

108 drugs came to the fore and were further used to test their ability to inhibit the new coronavirus

Researchers actually evaluated the anti-coronavirus effect of masitinib in animal models

Animal experiment results show that masitinib can reduce virus titer and improve lung pathology

(Source: Reference 1)

On the sixth day of treatment, the researchers began to analyze the effect of the treatment and found that masitinib significantly reduced the virus titers in the lungs and nose of the mice, and improved the pathological conditions of the lungs

Taken together, the researchers pointed out that masitinib can reduce viral load by more than 99% on the sixth day of treatment

In addition, masitinib can effectively inhibit the new coronavirus and its mutant strains, and is also effective against a variety of coronaviruses and picornaviruses.

Broad-spectrum neutralizing antibody--S2H97

Neutralizing antibodies against the new coronavirus is one of the important means to treat and prevent COVID-19.

Recently, researchers discovered a broad-spectrum neutralizing antibody called S2H97, which maintains neutralizing activity against a variety of strains of the Sarbe coronavirus subgenus

In the challenge experiment carried out in hamsters, pre-injection of S2H97 into animals can reduce the number of viral RNA copies by more than 10,000 times compared with control animals

Testing based on the breadth of antibody neutralization capabilities may find more conservative epitopes, and support the development of antibodies or vaccines that are more resistant to immune escape, in response to new coronaviruses that may emerge in the future

The COVID-19 epidemic has become a global pandemic, causing great damage to the global economy and people's lives and health

Reference source:

1.
Nir Drayman et al.
, (2021), Masitinib is a broad coronavirus 3CL inhibitor that blocks replication of SARS-CoV-2, Science, DOI: 10.
1126/science.
abg5827;

2.
Starr et al.
, (2021).
SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies that maximize breadth and resistance to escape.
Nature, https://doi.
org/10.
1038/s41586-021-03807-6.