The frequent use of the INNA-051 nasal spray can give 96% protection against the coronavirus. The statement derives from a study by the Australian pharmaceutical company responsible for creating this drug, the Ena Respiratory, who was mentored by Professor Miles Carroll, deputy director of Public Health England, and published this Monday on the biomedical pre-publications website, medRxiv.
According to The Telegraph, this new drug that was created to increase human immunity to colds and flu, will proceed to the testing phase in humans after the encouraging results obtained in tests on animals. According to the said study, INNA-051 prevents the virus from multiplying in the respiratory tract.
“We were surprised at the effectiveness of the treatment,” said Dr. Christophe Demaison, managing director of Ena Respiratory. After testing was completed to ensure the initial purpose of the drug, the entire process was repeated to study the drug’s impact on Covid-19.
The results show that, by increasing the immune response, the spray dramatically decreased the possibility of infection, even when ferrets (animals used in the testing phase) were deliberately infected with the virus.
The company is now seeking additional funding to accelerate the clinical development of the nasal spray and its global distribution. INNA-051 is also the name of a small synthetic molecule that can be self-administered once or twice a week.
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