An investigation led by the Navarrese Nerea Irigoyen has found that the combination of two drugs reduces the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by up to 99.5%. The drugs attack on human cells that have already been infected and not directly on the virus, preventing it from generating resistance, reports Herald of Aragon.
The study, published PLOS Pathogens, finds that these two drugs, called Ceapin-A7 and KIRA8, are “very specific” to stop the “unfolded protein response”, which is, according to the virologist’s explanation to the newspaper, “a three-pronged signaling pathway that, precisely, is necessary for the virus to replicate.”
Irigoyen explains that, thanks to the drug developed, “the virus stopped replicating within the cell almost completely, which means that the infection could not spread to other cells”, which “has great potential as an antiviral strategy against SARS-CoV-2”. It is a “first line of defense that stops the infection at first and gives time for the immune system to react.”
The problem with drugs that directly treat the virus, such as remdesivir, is that can generate resistance and become harmless. The virologist affirms that her team believes that “not only will it reduce the viral load in the cell, but the pathology that the infection creates “, so the disease would generate milder symptoms.
In search of financing
Now the team seeks funding with the The objective of testing the drug in mice, since, for the moment, the research has been carried out in human cell cultures. “We want to see what happens in primary lung cultures and test the drugs in mice, to see their efficacy and degree of toxicity in a real organism,” he says.
The next step would be to search for el economic boost from a pharmaceutical company with which to finance clinical trials with human beings. Although it warns that “unless there was another health emergency that accelerated it, a new drug takes between five and ten years to reach the market ”.
The study has been carried out in only three months, since the remaining six have been of revision of the article, whose publication has been a “release”. The research drew on previous studies on the Zika virus, the main difficulty being “redirecting funding” to investigate the coronavirus.
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