MADRID (Reuters) PharmaMar shares in PharmaMar increased by nearly 20 percent on Tuesday after the Spanish drugmaker said that its lab trials showed that its drug Plitidepsin proved effective against the most common COVID-19 variants, which includes Omicron, which is highly infectious.
In-vitro studies published in the Life Science Alliance journal showed Plitidepsin also referred to as Aplidin was an effective antiviral effect against all variants and reduced the viral load detected in the lung tissue of animals by 99percent, the company said.
The same paper also included previously published positive effects in Phase I and II clinical trials carried out on patients admitted to hospitals with COVID-19.
The drug was originally developed to combat cancer. It is currently undergoing Phase III trials for COVID-19 therapy.
Plitidepsin was identified early in the pandemic, through an interaction study of proteins published in Nature in April 2020, as one of the many compounds that could have antiviral properties against SARS-CoV-2.
“All evidence we have seen so far with Plitidepsin corroborate our initial assumption about its antiviral properties,” PharmaMar Chairman Jose Maria Fernandez Sousa said in an announcement.
The company’s shares rose 19% in the early hours of trading, and are on track to have their best day in over an entire year. The shares climbed around 20 percent in January 2013, largely due to positive news regarding Plitidepsin.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/3qfcqav Life Science Alliance, online January 10, 2022.
