On Monday we learnt from Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser that Coronavirus will almost certainly never ever disappear and a vaccine won’t cease it entirely. www.centerforcovidcontrol.org stated that ministers and specialists must cease ‘over-promising’ and be realistic about the prospects of a vaccine and the probably timeline of one, unlikely just before spring next year.
He then echoed his earlier warnings and those of his colleague Professor Chris Whitty that the COVID-19 fight will be a long one particular, and it will be with us for great.
So, from this really should we assume there is no ‘silver bullet’ for COVID-19 infections?
What if there had been a single remedy that:
could stop the infection in its tracks,
was anti-inflammatory controlling the immune system’s response to the infection and stopping it from overreacting dangerously,
in instances where patients developed secondary bacterial infections in the lungs could supercharge antibiotics boosting their efficacy and eve,
was a repurposed drug currently proven as protected
was effortless to make, scalable at the level essential to make a distinction in the pandemic and was price helpful, then would not that be anything we must all be having excited about?
Surely although no such ‘silver bullet’ game changing therapy exists? Just after all, the only treatment options we hear about for COVID are these which President Trump took, which were either extremely new, pricey and experimental or have a extremely narrow application to a certain aspect of the illness.
Properly, you heard it here initially – such a ‘silver bullet’ remedy does exist today. It is named Nylexa®, from the modest UK biotech business NovaBiotics Ltd. It’s active ingredients have been safely applied in medicines that treat unrelated conditions for more than 30 years.
NovaBiotics found Nylexa’s prospective added benefits in COVID-19 following a decade of investigation in difficult to treat, drug-resistant infections, such as the complex chest infections and inflammation related with cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease. In March they applied for a £1m grant from Innovate UK (representing the government) to get started clinical research. That grant was sooner or later awarded earlier this month, and the government are now considering irrespective of whether or not to include things like Nylexa on two separate NHS platform studies.
But why, I hear you ask, if this is so very good have we not heard about it before? Why are the government and the press not shouting about this from the rooftops? Why is this not becoming demanded by clinicians desperate for powerful remedies for their individuals?
I’m afraid to say, it all boils down to cash. Compact biotech firms come across it tricky to get focus as they don’t have the resources accessible to their larger improved funded rivals. The names we study about routinely when it comes to ground breaking new remedies are invariably significant multi-national pharmaceutical firms with deep pockets and massive budgets to market their own certain wares. They make confident their drugs get the required interest. NovaBiotics is a compact private corporation funded by a group of loyal and supportive shareholders so unfortunately never have the resources to compete for attention with the big boys.
Which is why this predicament is so frustrating. In mitigating the overall health consequences of contracting COVID-19, Nylexa® could enhance public confidence of living with the virus for the longer term and potentially allow a higher degree of normality to return to the way in which we live, benefiting the economy directly in addition to easing COVID-19’s burden on the NHS and healthcare systems globally. Yet obtaining men and women in positions of influence to take notice amongst all the others competing for their focus is very tricky certainly.
It is reported that there are thousands of prospective COVID-19 treatments in clinical trials across the globe. I would challenge anybody to show me a single which has the identical prospective for good impact as Nylexa®, however this is not at present portion of any trial, in spite of its impeccable credentials. So come on UK Government, and ministers, get your finger out and get this drug into trials quickly. The sooner it gets tested, the sooner it can be applied to aid sort out the mess the pandemic has caused to all our lives.
About NovaBiotics Ltd
NovaBiotics Ltd is a clinical-stage biotechnology enterprise focused on the style and development of very first-in-class therapies for complicated-to-treat, medically unmet infectiousdiseases caused by bacteria and fungi and respiratory circumstances including cystic fibrosis and COVID-19.
A major innovator in the anti-infectives space, the Company’s robust technologies and company model has been validated through productive improvement, from notion to late stage clinical development, of its most sophisticated product candidates. In addition to the lead Nylexa® programme and the Company’s other late-stage assets (Lynovex® for cystic fibrosis, NP213/Novexatin® for onychomycosis), NovaBiotics has generated a robust pipeline of earlier stage, higher-value drug candidates like NP339 (Department of Health and Social Care funded programme) for life threatening, drug resistant invasive fungal illness and NP432 for multi- drug resistant bacterial infections.
