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Cancer drug may reduce Covid load in lungs by 99 per cent

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The drug isn’t widely commercially available but has already been approved to treat some cancers.

Spanish pharmaceutical company PharmaMar claims its cancer drug Aplidin has the potential to reduce any Covid-19 load in lungs by 99 per cent. 

Already authorised to treat tumours in some markets, Aplidin blocks a protein associated with the virus and prevents viral replication, leading to the near-complete eradication of Covid viral loads in the lungs of animals, PharmaMar said. 

The peer-reviewed journal Science published a report earlier this week that confirmed the effectiveness of the drug, also known as Plitidepsin, writing it has “potent preclinical efficacy”.

Treatment of Covid-19

PharmaMar said in the report: “We believe that our data and the initial positive results from PharmaMar’s clinical trial suggests that Plitidepsin should be strongly considered for expanded clinical trials for the treatment of Covid-19.”

Aplidin has killed coronavirus in lab studies and is nearly 30 times more potent than Remdesivir, while still being safe in humans.

Talks between regulatory agencies and PharmaMar have now begun to arrange the start of phase three trials.