◎ Science and Technology Daily reporter Zhang Jiaxing
On May 18, the “treatment report” of the first domestically produced new crown oral drug was announced. The paper shows: 5 infected patients received the oral drug within 3 days after the nucleic acid test was positive, and the nucleic acid turned negative after an average of 5 days (median), while the nucleic acid of the control group turned negative. The median negative was 11.13 days. In terms of data alone, early treatment and early medication may halve the treatment cycle.
data map. Image source: Visual China
Relevant research was conducted by the National Center for Infectious Diseases Medicine, Professor Zhang Wenhong, Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, and Fan Xiaohong of Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center The team of professors and others collaborated to evaluate the impact of a domestic oral drug named VV116 on the nucleic acid conversion time of non-severe Omicron infected patients. Detailed data from the study were published online May 18 in the journal Emerging Microbes & Infections.
What is VV116?
VV116 is an oral anti-coronavirus drug developed by Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other research institutes in cooperation with enterprises.
Relevant research and development units previously disclosed that the team of Shen Jingshan, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, found in an adenovirus mouse model that oral administration of VV116 could reduce the virus titer Below the detection limit, and significantly improve the pathological changes in the lung tissue of experimental model animals, the drug was approved for the treatment of new crowns in Uzbekistan at the end of last year, and has been approved for clinical trials in China.
The industry is more optimistic about VV116 and believes that it has the potential to become an effective drug for the treatment of the new crown. Relevant experts explained in previous interviews with Science and Technology Daily that the basic principle of VV116 attacking the new coronavirus is similar to that of remdesivir, and it is the core enzyme for attacking the new coronavirus.
When the new coronavirus is self-synthesizing in the human body, VV116 can disguise “adulteration”, making the RNA polymerase of the new coronavirus “stuck”, cannot reproduce in the human body.
Studies suggest that administration within 5 days after positive is critical
In the study, 136 COVID-19 patients were divided into two groups according to their own wishes: 60 received the domestically produced COVID-19 oral drug VV116, 300 mg of VV116 orally every 12 hours; 76 were included in the control group without antiviral therapy . Both groups of participants will receive anti-inflammatory and other symptomatic treatment.
The data show that the time of nucleic acid conversion to negative for Omicron-infected patients who used VV116 within 5 days after the first nucleic acid test was positive was 8.56 days, which was less than 11.13 days for the control group, and the former was less. to the latter.
And if the drug is not taken in time after the positive, the effect of the drug will be difficult to show. The specific data are as follows: 5 days after the positive nucleic acid test for the first time, the Omicron-infected patients who used VV116 had a negative nucleic acid conversion time of 11.46 days, and the control group was 11.13 days, and the two were almost the same.
Data show that dosing within 5 days will lead to greater benefit for patients. This pattern did not appear in VV116, and it was also suggested in studies related to approved new crown drugs (such as monupavir and paciclovir). It can be seen that early treatment and early intervention will greatly shorten the infection time.
The study also collected data on the drug safety of VV116. The results showed that there were no serious adverse events, 7 cases reported mild abnormal liver function, 1 case reported increased blood urea, and 1 case of increased white blood cell count, all of which were relieved and recovered without intervention.
Small Molecule Drugs or Better Protection against Variation
Since the Omicron variant became the mainstream strain of the new crown pandemic, several studies have shown that the variant can successfully escape the neutralizing antibody drugs that have been developed.
For example, a paper published in the journal Nature late last year evaluated 9 neutralizing antibodies at the time and showed that 5 were completely ineffective and 2 had reduced effective activity. 20 times.
A previous study by Zhang Wenhong’s team compared the neutralizing abilities of 20 neutralizing antibodies against Omicron, Omicron sublines and different variant sites Changes, suggesting that a large number of neutralizing antibodies are or have “successfully escaped by the virus”. Although a small number of antibodies have not yet escaped, given the mutagenic nature of RNA viruses (the new coronavirus is an RNA virus), drug resistance may develop if it is administered long-term as a monotherapy, the researchers said.
Under such premise, small molecule anti-coronavirus drugs have high hopes. The good news is that more and more small-molecule antiviral drugs have been shown to remain effective against variants of the new coronavirus, such as Pacyclovir, which has been approved for marketing, and VV116, which is reported today.
Source: Tech DayNews< /span>
Editor: Wang Yu
Review: Yue Liang
Final review: Wang Tingting