Treatments against Covid-19: research is progressing with fifteen molecules under study

The focus on vaccination makes us forget that there are hundreds of other avenues of treatment for Covid. The National Medicines Agency (ANSM), for example, has just authorized the launch of a new clinical trial. Called miRAGE, it aims to test the effectiveness of a new molecule – ABX464 – developed by a French biotech.

This trial, led by the Nice University Hospital, is being carried out on 400 patients around the world, all of whom are over 65 years of age or at risk of developing a severe form of the disease. From the first symptoms, they must take this medicine once a day, orally, in the form of a small tablet, and are monitored at home.

Every other day, the caregivers call them to check on them. “You don’t run out of air. You don’t cough anymore, I think”, asks a doctor from one of these guinea pigs. Among them, Jean-Claude Fedida was the very first volunteer. He is now cured after being ill for over a month, and has escaped hospitalization. But he still doesn’t know if it’s due to the drug. “The next step is to know if I benefited from an effective or active molecule, or if, on the contrary, I only had a placebo and the rest was a shrink”, he asks himself.

“The miRAGE trial in the coming months will hopefully further accelerate the inclusions in order to obtain results as quickly as possible”, for his part, Dr. Eric Cua, infectious disease specialist at the University Hospital of Nice. “Also try to include as much as possible, especially in Europe, because we are a little behind, especially compared to Latin America”, he says.

The first results are expected in a month. In the meantime, the Nice team will participate in another clinical trial conducted at the Nantes University Hospital this time. A very promising treatment against severe forms developed, again, by a French biotech. “The objective is to administer to the patient, thanks to an infusion in one hour, antibodies at a high level to block the virus”, details Professor François Raffi, coordinator of the Polycor trial at Nantes University Hospital.

In the meantime, in all hospitals, doctors are saving patients every day by making better use of oxygen or corticosteroids. But on the side of new treatments, there have been a lot of disappointed hopes in a year. “We don’t have our own antiviral treatment. There have been a lot of disappointments in this area”, estimates Professor Jean-Jacques Mourad, head of the internal medicine department at Saint-Joseph hospital in Paris. “The first working hypothesis to seek antiinfectives seemed logical at the start “, he adds.

Today, the horizon is clearing up because research is better organized. About fifteen molecules are thus being tested. “In the next six months, we will have more serious leads because these specific treatments will reach a more mature stage of development”, annonce le directeur de l’ANRS, from Summer Yazdanpanah.

In Toulouse, other researchers are using an original method, a human mini-lung made from scratch. In a secure area of ​​their laboratory, they infect these miniature organs with the Covid virus and test a whole battery of old drugs on them. “We can thus identify molecules with antiviral effects when at the start they were not known for anti-infectious properties”, explains Céline Cougoule, from the CNRS Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology.

Most of them are antidepressants, antidiabetics, or even anticancer drugs, which a priori have nothing to do with the coronavirus, but which will perhaps join the therapeutic arsenal to treat this disease tomorrow.