11 June 2020
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 models. The company added that the drug completely cleared the infection in ferrets’ lung tissues and inhibited inflammation, according to Reuters.
China-based Sinovac Biotech has joined the list of the Philippines Government’s potential collaborators for Covid-19 vaccine development and clinical trials. Last month, Sinovac Biotech announced that the company is in talks to perform late-stage trials of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate worldwide.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has commenced a clinical trial of an experimental rheumatoid arthritis drug, called 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.
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’s spike protein or the human ACE2 cellular receptor.
