A new treatment for the coronavirus has helped several patients with moderate to severe illness with COVID-19 recover within days in phase 1 trials, according to a report in The Times of Israel newspaper.
The drug developed by scientists at the Ichilov Medical Center (Tel Aviv, Israel), which moderates the immune response and helps prevent the deadly cytokine storm, allowed 29 of the 30 patients in the trial to leave the hospital in 3-5 days. In what has been hailed as a “breakthrough,” all 30 COVID-19 patients with moderate or severe symptoms who had been administered the substance EXO-CD24 recovered from the disease. The substance uses exosomes, or small carrier sacs that carry materials between cells, to deliver a protein called CD24 to the lungs to fight the cytokine storm and calm the immune system. Scientists will now begin phase 2 of testing the drug, which could be a potential game changer in the fight against the serious illness of COVID-19.
“The preparation is inhaled once a day for a few minutes, for five days,” Professor Nadir Arber, who discovered the substance, told The Times of Israel. “The preparation targets the heart of the storm, the lungs, so unlike other formulas … which selectively restrict a certain cytokine, or operate widely but cause many serious side effects, EXO-CD24 is administered locally, it works extensively and without side effects ”.
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Ichilov Medical Center
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