10 June
South Korea-based Daewoong Pharmaceutical has found that its anti-parasitic drug niclosamide removed SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19, from lungs in animal tests. The company added that the drug completely cleared the infection in ferrets’ lung tissues and inhibited inflammation, according to Reuters.
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GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has commenced a clinical trial of an experimental rheumatoid arthritis drug, otilimab, to treat patients with pneumonia caused by Covid-19 in the US. The company intends to expand the study to include patients in the UK, Italy, Spain, South America and Africa, reported Reuters.
China-based Sinovac Biotech has joined the list of the Philippines’ potential collaborators for Covid-19 vaccine development and clinical trials. Last month, Sinovac Biotech announced that the company was in talks to perform late-stage trials of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate worldwide.
Twist Bioscience has partnered with Serimmune to identify and assess anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic antibody candidates. The partners will use Serimmune’s Serum Epitope Repertoire Analysis (SERA) platform to analyse existing Twist antibody candidates with high affinity to bind to SARS-CoV-2 S1 spike protein or the human ACE2 cellular receptor.
