The medicine polyoxidonium, developed by NPO Petrovax Pharm, is used for respiratory infections caused by viruses and as a booster for vaccines. The drug is undergoing phase 3 testing in patients with covid-19 in Russia and will soon expand trials to Slovakia, according to company president Mikhail Tsyferov, in an interview.
Preliminary results of the trial are expected in February and will be published in scientific journals, according to Tsyferov. “This is our ticket to export markets,” he said.
Russia, with the fifth largest number of covid-19 cases in the world, faces a second wave of the pandemic that threatens to overwhelm the hospital system.
So far, there are no drugs to treat covid-19, according with the World Health Organization. Last week, the body advised against the use of Gilead Sciences’ antiviral remdesivir, one of the drugs administered to U.S. President Donald Trump when he was diagnosed with the disease in October.
The approach to testing polyoxide – registered for use since 1996 for various diseases in Russia, in some former republics of the Soviet Union and later in Slovakia – differs from the Kremlin’s rush to authorize experimental vaccines against covid-19 before they were fully examined.
In August, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the country would allow the widespread use of a vaccine for covid-19 before the tests established its safety and effectiveness. A second test vaccine was approved in October and a third is expected before the end of the year.
Poloxanthium is an immunotropic medicine that helps to stimulate the immune system. Patients with covid-19 may become ill because their immune systems do not react sufficiently to protect them from the virus, suggesting that such treatment may help, according to research by scientists at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, published in August.
Clinical tests with the drug to treat covid-19 they started in April and demonstrated that the drug does not elicit an excessive immune response, said Tsyferov. According to the president of the pharmaceutical company, 330 patients participate in the Russian test and Petrovax hopes to include 25 people in a trial in Slovakia approved by health authorities this month. The study is carried out according to WHO protocols, according to Petrovax.
Petrovax also performs several parallel tests, including to test whether the drug works as prevention for doctors who treat coronavirus. A recent study included 81 people with moderate to severe cases of covid-19, 80% of which were oxygen-supported, and there were no deaths, according to Tsyferov.
CanSino vaccine
If the main trial proves its effectiveness, Petrovax plans to record the use of polyoxide for cases of covid-19 in addition to Russia and Slovakia. Petrovax is in contact with researchers in Oxford and Munich, while its experts suggested applying for registration in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Order preparation work has already started.
The company has the capacity to produce up to 15 million doses per year and currently sells 2.5 million per year.
Petrovax, which has an agreement to produce CanSino Biologics’ covid-19 vaccine locally, plans to invest one billion rubles (about $ 13 million) to increase vaccine production.
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