Shares in respiratory drug development company Synairgen (SNG:AIM) soared 300% to 149p on Monday following a major breakthrough in the treatment of hospitalised Covid-19 patients.
Synairgen conducted a double-blind placebo controlled trial of 101 patients from nine hospital sites across the UK between 30 March and 27 May. In this type of trial neither the doctors nor the patients know whether they have been administered with the drug, which helps to prevent bias in research results.
The company was testing its proprietary inhaled-formulation of interferon beta, a drug that helps reduce the body’s immune reaction.
STRONG EFFICACY
Hospitalised patients suffering from Covid-19 who received the company’s proprietary SNG001 drug were 79% less likely to develop severe diseases such as requiring ventilation or going on to die compared with the patients receiving the placebo.
In addition they were more than twice as likely to recover from Covid-19 as those on the placebo, ‘to the point where their everyday activities were not compromised.’ Although this is a small trial and is yet to be peer reviewed the results could be a game-changer for patients requiring hospitalisation.
One of the main symptoms of severe Covid-19 is breathlessness which was significantly reduced in those patients taking the drug. In patients with more severe disease at the time of admission and requiring supplemental oxygen, the SNG001 treatment increased the likelihood of hospital discharge, although the difference was not statistically significant.
However, by day 28 patients receiving the drug did have statistically significantly better odds of making a recovery.
Richard Marsden, chief executive, commented ‘our efforts are now focused on working with the regulators and other key groups to progress this potential COVID-19 treatment as rapidly as possible.’
The trial’s chief investigator professor Tom Wilkinson said ‘the results confirm our belief that interferon beta, a widely known drug that, by injection, has been approved for use in a number of other indications, has huge potential as an inhaled drug to be able to restore the lung's immune response, enhancing protection, accelerating recovery and countering the impact of SARS-CoV-2 virus.’
