A scientific team led by UCSF may have found another innovative drug treatment to combat COVID-19, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle for the first time. Studies have shown that small concentrations of Aplidin, a drug created from the extraction of a sea creature called Aplidium albicans, killed the virus both in infected human lung cells and in analogous monkey cells.
The study, which was published in the journal Science, shows that the “sea water” found on the coast of Ibiza can be “almost 30 times more potent than Remdesivir”, reported the Chronicle. Although not yet approved for the treatment of patients with COVID-19, if proven to be effective, this treatment would be a welcome addition to the still small amount of antiviral drugs available to treat the disease.
“We need some new weapons in the arsenal,” said Nevan Krogan, molecular biologist at UCSF who led the scientific team along with Adolfo García-Sastre, a virus specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, to the San Francisco Chronicle . “This is by far the best thing we’ve seen.”
The drug, also known as plitidepsin, is not commercially available in much of the world, but has already been approved in Australia to treat a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. It is owned by Pharma Mar, a Spanish company founded by a diving scientist.
In a clinical trial in Spain, Pharma Mar reported that 27 patients who received Aplidin saw a reduced period of time in the hospital recovering from COVID-19, with 81% of the patients returning home in 15 days. The typical rate of return is 47%.
Aplidine has also been tested successfully in mice, with the virus effectively disappearing from the body after treatment. Unlike Remdesivir, instead of attacking the virus, the drug could prevent a specific protein within human cells from replicating.
More tests are planned for the US and Spain, Pascal Besman, the company’s chief operating officer, told the Chronicle.