Kintor’s antiviral shows protection in mild-to-moderate COVID-19
pharmafile | April 7, 2022 | News story | Business Services |
Kintor Pharmaceutical, based in Suzhou, China, has announced top-line results from its Phase III MRCT trial of proxalutamide in outpatients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. The study evaluated the patients regardless of vaccination status or risk factors.
The data show that the drug offered a protection rate of 100% against COVID-19. It reduced hospitalisation or death in COVID-19 patients, particularly in the middle-aged and elderly with high-risk factors.
Proxalutamide is an ACE2 and TMPRSS2 inhibitor. ACE2 is the primary receptor on human cells that allows the SARS-CoV-2 virus to latch on and enter the cell. The virus uses TMPRSS2 for S protein priming, meaning that it activates the virus’s S protein. Inhibiting both of these protein receptors stalls the virus’s ability to enter and infect cells.
By promoting the clearance of the virus, it decreases inflammation by activating the Nrf2 pathway, which prevents overproduction of IL-6, proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines.
“The topline data of this pivotal study demonstrates the clinical efficacy of proxalutamide in the mostly U.S. COVID-19 population with a significant reduction of hospitalization and death rate in patients,” stated Dr Tong Youzhi, founder, chairman and CEO of Kintor.
“It is important to note that proxalutamide has showed COVID-19 viral load reduction against both Delta and Omicron variants, which is important as new variants continue to arise. The continued increase in COVID-19 cases serves as a reminder that the world urgently needs effective and safe oral drugs with different mechanisms of action.”
In patients who received treatment for more than seven days, six in the placebo cohort were hospitalised with one death, compared to no hospitalisation or death in the proxalutamide cohort. In this group, proxalutamide decreased the risk of hospitalisation or death by 100% compared to the placebo cohort.
Lina Adams
