Research Roundup: Study finds malaria drug helps improve COVID-19 patients, J&J and Moderna sign deals with US to produce coronavirus vaccines, and FDA authorizes 15-minute coronavirus test

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) began enrolling patients in a study to test hydroxychloroquine—a malaria drug also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus—as a potential therapy for patients hospitalized with symptomatic COVID-19. Although President Trump has repeatedly touted hydroxychloroquine as a “game-changer” treatment in combating the novel coronavirus, the drug has yet to be proven safe and effective as a COVID-19 therapy in a clinical trial. This NIH-funded trial is one of 18 trials in the United States seeking to determine if hydroxychloroquine can treat COVID-19. The US Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization allowing doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19—leading to a spike in demand and causing shortages.US researchers began clinical trials of a second experimental COVID-19 vaccine that uses a skin-deep shot instead of the usual deeper injection. This study is evaluating if two doses of Inovio Pharmaceuticals’ vaccine candidate is safe enough for efficacy larger tests. The Inovio vaccine works by packaging a section of the virus’ code inside synthetic DNA which is then injected into the skin. The cells act a mini factory, producing harmless protein copies which prompt the immune system to make protective antibodies against them should the real virus ever come along. After the injection, researchers use a device to give the injection site an electrical zap to help the vaccine more easily penetrate and get to work. This vaccine—like the NIH and Moderna’s vaccine candidate—is not made using the actual virus, meaning there’s no chance of getting infected from the vaccine and that it is able to be produced more quickly than traditional vaccines.Australian researchers have published a study showing ivermectin, a drug commonly used to treat parasitic infections, can also kill coronavirus in a laboratory setting in under 48 hours. Research was carried out on cell cultures in the lab, which does not always translate to effectiveness in people who have contracted the infection. The exact manner in which the drug kills the virus is unknown, but researchers say it was likely done by "dampening down" the ability of host cells to clear the drug. Ivermectin has already been studied and approved to treat other conditions, offering an advantage over new drug development—a long process that typically involves many years of studying safety and efficacy before being able to reach human patients. Further research is needed to determine whether the drug could be used to treat COVID-19.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.  Scientists studying the genetic code of the novel coronavirus have determined it is not mutating quickly, suggesting the virus is less likely to become more dangerous as it spreads. Although all viruses evolve over time, accumulating mutations as they replicate inside a host’s cells and spread through a population, scientists say there is no evidence that some strains of the new coronavirus are deadlier than others. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are now studying more than 1,000 samples of the virus and have noted only four to ten genetic differences between the strains that have infected people in the United States and the original virus that spread in Wuhan. This represents hope for researchers working to create a long-lasting vaccine against the pathogen. Several vaccines are currently in development, but experts posit it could be at least a year to 18 months before one becomes available. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it is making it easier for doctors to try an experimental treatment for seriously ill COVID-19 patients that uses plasma from people who have had the disease and recovered. Though there is currently little evidence this treatment works in people infected with the novel coronavirus, the approach has recently been used with some effectiveness to treat patients with SARS and Ebola. The idea is that so-called convalescent plasma taken from donors recovering from infection will contain antibodies to the virus that can be used to treat other patients. There are risks with this approach, the worst being it could make the patient sicker—a response known as antibody-dependent enhancement where the virus is actually helped to proliferate by a patient's own immune system. The FDA will still require doctors to seek approval to use the treatment for individual patients, but they can receive authorization in less than four hours via phone call. The FDA has granted emergency use authorization for a rapid COVID-19 test on the GeneXpert platform, a widely used tool for tuberculosis diagnostic, which could facilitate increased testing capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). There are more than 23,000 of the devices worldwide, which are produced by Cepheid, including an estimated 7,000–10,000 across Africa, Latin America, and South-East Asia. The tool can process nose swab samples in only 45 minutes and perform up to 96 tests in 24 hours. GeneXpert tests are automated, point-of-care devices which allow healthcare facilities to perform the test in-house without having to send samples off to a lab, allowing for real-time management of patients being evaluated for admission to facilities. Advocates are calling on Cepheid to reduce the price of test cartridges from US$20 to $5 to make them more affordable in LMICs.