The Absence of Long COVID Treatment Plans Has Become a New Business Opportunity for Medium-sized Pharmas

Long COVID refers to the long-term sequelae left after infection with SARS-CoV-2 for more than three months. Currently, there are more than 200 known symptoms, including fatigue, chest pain, brain fog, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, major international biopharma companies have mainly focused their research efforts on the COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral therapy, but there are still no plans to develop related therapies for the long-term sequelae caused by COVID. Only small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies such as Axcella Therapeutics and PureTech Health are currently working with researchers on clinical trials of Long COVID treatments.

Most Major International Pharmas Have No Research Plans for Long COVID Yet

Since the existence of long COVID was first mentioned, the underlying mechanisms and related treatments have yet to be researched and developed. However, due to constant mutations of the new coronavirus, which have caused a series of COVID-19 waves, the biopharma industry has been mainly focusing on vaccines and drugs against virus variants, while little attention has been paid to the sequelae and side effects caused by the new coronavirus. 

Major global pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Regeneron and Humanigen have recently expressed interest in developing treatments for long COVID, but have no plans to include them in their clinical trials for the time being. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche even stated that they have not yet seen any demand for long COVID treatments from patients worldwide and that it is still too early to carry out related clinical trials.

Nevertheless, GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) has recently revealed that the possibility of using their existing treatment to treat Long COVID is already under discussion.

Long COVID has disrupted the daily lives of more than 100 million patients worldwide who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, and may even result in long-term sequelae such as an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. For this reason, the development of relevant studies and treatments in the post-epidemic period is a matter of great urgency.

Related article: SARS-CoV-2 and Brain Shrinking; Why the Pandemic is So Hard to Forget

Medium-sized Pharmas Collaborate with Universities to Explore Possibilities of Treatments

According to ClinicalTrials.gov, there are less than 20 ongoing clinical trials of drugs related to long COVID. Many scientists are eager to get involved as soon as possible to uncover the underlying mechanisms and to develop new treatments or search for existing ones to treat long COVID.

American pharmaceutical company Axcella Therapeutics is currently conducting a clinical study with the University of Oxford on the treatment of long COVID with drugs for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), with the hope of restoring patients’ mitochondrial functions to alleviate the side effects of prolonged fatigue. Another US biotech company, PureTech Health, is conducting a medium-sized clinical trial of treatment for pulmonary fibrosis to mitigate the lung damage caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Apart from the US, a recent large clinical trial of long COVID led by the University of London has recruited 4,500 patients with long COVID and studied the efficacy of loratadine, famotidine, colchicine for gout, and Johnson & Johnson’s thromboprophylaxis drug Xarelto, all of which were shown to have potential in combating long COVID in preliminary studies.

Another large UK-based trial is testing two drugs that target the cardiovascular system in people who have been hospitalized with COVID-19. One, called apixaban, is an anticoagulant. The other, atorvastatin, is a cholesterol-lowering medication thought to reduce inflammation in blood vessels. The study will investigate whether either treatment reduces hospitalizations and deaths in the year after people are first discharged from the hospital.

Vaccination is Currently the Best Way to Reduce the Risk of Developing Long COVID

According to immunologist Danny Altmann of Imperial College London, vaccines are currently the best way to prevent long COVID. It remains unclear whether the existing COVID-19 treatments are sufficiently effective for the long-term consequences of the disease, as they are primarily aimed at dealing with the acute symptoms. “In theory, a drug that reduces disease severity might reduce the severity of long-term symptoms,” says Altmann.

A number of clinical trials are currently underway for Molnupiravir from MSD (known as Merck in the US and Canada), and Paxlovid from Pfizer respectively. Although none of these trials are focused on long COVID, continuous follow-up on data from patients for three to six weeks after recovery will still provide valuable information on the treatment of long COVID.

Dr. Altmann also emphasized that clinical studies with long COVID are more time-consuming than those with COVID-19 due to its chronic nature. Preliminary results on the efficacy of the drugs will be available through multiple small-scale clinical trials as early as this year, but they may not be statistically meaningful.

Written by Aurora Mau/ Translated by Richard Chau

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GeneOnline