Firm claims to identify drug with potential to treat victims

US drugmaker Pfizer Inc said that early data has helped it identify a drug candidate with the potential to help treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

It also finalised a plan to develop a coronavirus vaccine in partnership with German drugmaker BioNTech SE and said the companies hope to produce millions of vaccines by the end of 2020. The companies said they plan to start trials of the vaccine as early as this month.

Data from preclinical studies of a compound that was originally developed to treat SARS — a different coronavirus that caused a major epidemic in 2003 — shows its potential to treat patients with the new coronavirus, Pfizer research chief Mikael Dolsten told Reuters in an interview.

Pfizer said it will conduct additional preclinical studies of the drug and aims to begin trials in humans in the third quarter of 2020.

In addition, Pfizer said it plans to support studies to determine whether existing Pfizer medicines, including its rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz, may provide benefits for those struggling with the COVID-19 respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

“Pfizer has mobilized resources and capabilities to address every single frontier of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dolsten said.

More than a dozen large drugmakers, including Pfizer, have announced plans in recent months to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus, although few if any are likely to reach patients in time to stem the current outbreak.

Reuters last month was first to report Pfizer’s planned collaboration with BioNTech on a vaccine based on messenger RNA technology.

Pfizer will pay BioNTech $185 million upfront to develop the vaccine, with additional payments if certain milestones are achieved that could boost its total investment to nearly $750 million, the companies said.

Pfizer will help manufacture any eventual product and said it aims produce hundreds of millions of vaccines next year.

The largest US drugmaker also announced a five-point plan for confronting the virus that includes collaborating with outside companies and institutions on the research, development and manufacture of treatments.

Meanwhile, Pfizer will help fund a study into whether Xeljanz, which belongs to a class of drugs called JAK inhibitors and also treats the autoimmune disease ulcerative colitis, can help patients with pneumonia caused by COVID-19.

Rheumatoid arthritis treatments from other drugmakers that work differently than Xeljanz are also being studied as possible COVID-19 treatments.

Pfizer is also looking into the potential of other drugs that work on the immune system to help coronavirus patients, the company said.

The company is also working with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine on two studies to better understand the relationship between coronavirus and pneumonia, which plays a role in many deaths caused by the virus that attacks the lungs. Pfizer will also publish a review of research into whether its antibiotic azithromycin, sold under the brand name Zithromax, can play a role in treating COVID-19.

Azithromycin has been used with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine by some doctors after a French study suggested the combination might benefit some COVID-19 patients.

On the other hand, in the emergency rooms of virus hotspots around the world, medical staff are seeing a greater number of men than women suffering severe symptoms of COVID-19, with obesity emerging as another potentially aggravating factor. But experts are still unsure why.

What first began to appear as a pattern in China, where the virus emerged at the end of last year, has echoed through hospitals in Europe and the United States as the pandemic spreads.

“More men than women have serious problems, and patients who are overweight or have previous health problems are at higher risk,” said Derek Hill, Professor of Medical Imaging Science at University College London.

Early statistics from Britain’s independent Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre on people treated in intensive care for the virus confirm this phenomenon: 73 per cent are men and 73.4 per cent are classed as overweight.

According to preliminary data of outcomes for those patients who had either recovered or died of COVID-19 in the period before April 3, obese patients were also less likely to recover after receiving critical care.

Some 42.4 per cent of people with a body mass index (BMI) over 30 were able to go home after successful treatment, compared with 56.4 per cent of patients with a BMI of less than 25.

French emergency rooms have seen “a very large proportion of overweight or obese patients,” ICU doctor Matthieu Schmidt at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris told broadcaster France 2, adding that “three quarters” of all patients were men.

In New York there is a similar picture emerging.

“I’m in the emergency room, and it’s remarkable − I’d estimate that 80 per cent of the patients being brought in are men,” Hani Sbitany, a reconstructive surgeon at Mount Sinai Health System who has been treating COVID-19 patients in Brooklyn.

Agencies