The Phase II trial for an Israeli COVID drug saw some 29 out of 30 patients, moderate to serious, recover within days.
By Rossella Tercatin, JPOST AUGUST 5, 2021 22:24
A PATIENT is administered Prof. Nadir Arber’s EXO-CD24 COVID-19 treatment.
Some 93% of 90 coronavirus serious patients treated in several Greek hospitals with a new drug developed by a team at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center as part of the Phase II trial of the treatment were discharged in five days or fewer.
The Phase II trial confirmed the results of Phase I, which was conducted in Israel last winter and saw 29 out of 30 patients in moderate to serious condition recover within days.
“The main goal of this study was to verify that the drug is safe,” Prof. Nadir Arber said. “To this day we have not registered any significant side effect in any patient from both groups.”
The trial was conducted in Athens because Israel did not have enough relevant patients. The principal investigator was Greece’s coronavirus commissioner, Prof. Sotiris Tsiodras.
Arber and his team, including Dr. Shiran Shapira, developed the drug based on a molecule that the professor has been studying for 25 years called CD24, which is naturally present in the body.
“It is important to remember that 19 out of 20 COVID-19 patients do not need any therapy,” Arber said. “After a window of five to 12 days, some 5% of the patients start to deteriorate.”
The main cause of the clinical deterioration is an over activation of the immune system, also known as a cytokine storm. In case of COVID-19 patients, the system starts attacking healthy cells in the lungs.
“This is exactly the problem that our drug targets,” he said.
CD24 is a small protein that is anchored to the membrane of the cells and it serves many functions including regulating the mechanism responsible for the cytokine storm.
Arber stressed that their treatment, EXO-CD24, does not affect the immune system as a whole, but only targets this specific mechanism, helping find again its correct balance.
“This is precision medicine,” he said. “We are very happy that we have found a tool to tackle the physiology of the disease.”
“Steroids for example shut down the entire immune system,” he further explained. “We are balancing the part responsible for the cytokine storms using the endogenous mechanism of the body, meaning tools offered by the body itself.”
Arber noted that another breakthrough element of this treatment is its delivery.
“We are employing exosomes, very small vesicles derived from the membrane of the cells which are responsible for the exchange of information between them,” he said.
“By managing to deliver them exactly where they are needed, we avoid many side effects,” he added.
The team is now ready to launch the last phase of the study.
“As promising as the findings of the first phases of a treatment can be, no one can be sure of anything until results are compared to the ones of patients who receive a placebo,” he said.
Some 155 coronavirus patients will take part in the study. Two-thirds of them will be administered the drug, and one-third a placebo.
The study will be conducted in Israel and it might be also carried out in other places if the number of patients in the country will not suffice.
“We hope to complete it by the end of the year,” Arber said.
If the results are confirmed, he vowed that the treatment can be made available relatively quickly and at a low cost.
“In addition, a success could pave the wave to treat many other diseases,” he concluded.
This is the misleading headline from the Jerusalem Post that I mentioned earlier.
An excellent point, Peloni. The development of new medications to treat the illness, a slow process , is no excuse for not using the many medications that have already proven effective in treating the illness.
Dr. Zelenko actually lists more than thirty such medications on his website (he has been banned from Facebook and Twitter for “violating community standards,” meaning opposing government policies concerning the corona virus), in addition to the well-known and highly effective ivervectin and hydrochloriquine. Nearly all of these medications are generic, which presumably is why government agencies have banned or at least discouaged their use, so as not to reduce the profits of the vaccine manufacturers, who have lucrative patents on them.
The statement in an Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, that this new medication (actually one of two new treatments by Israeli doctors that are due for a second trial sometime later this year) will soon be “more widely available” is misleading. For the second trial, only months away, it will be made available to all of 50 people!
While the Israelis are making their medical researchers conduct three trials before authorizing these medications for use, a lengthy process, the U.S. CDC waved this requirement when it gave “emergency use” authorization for the vaccines. Even now, it has not granted any of the vaccines “permanent” approval, which would require extensive testing, study and review by physicians not connected with the drug manufacturers. Instead, the CDC, and I guess the Israeli health department as well, has authorized the use of the vaccines based solely on information provided by the manufacturers. What a shonda.
That there is a new, potentially effective treatment for Covid is good news, however, there are already a handful of effective medicines which are available right now…and have been for quite some time. The real pandemic is the death-grip that big pharma and the socialist bureaucrats have on the supply chain. This disease is being used (and was possibly created) for political purposes and for financial gain. That’s what’s killing people.
Wunderbar Israel as usual.
To add to peloni comments:
The AMA failed the American people.
The W DC corruptocracy backstabbed the American people.
The MSM backstabbed the American people.
The politicians backstabbed the American people.
The crypto-socialists are pushing their agenda against the American people.
As promising as this is, and as exciting as the initial data appears, the end of the year is too late. Next month is too late. People are dying today. People who could be treated with HCQ/IVM cocktails today will go on to exhibit overwhelming disease symptoms. Of these, unknown numbers will die, but whatever the number is it is too many. And of those who do not succumb to their symptoms will deal with the consequence of having left this disease become well established in their bodies while ready treatments are withheld. This is scandalous.