Nordic Life Science 1
COVID-19 UPDATE R E P OR T Over 3 billion NOK for
COVID-19 research THE REPORT, COMPILED BY NORDFORSK in February–April 2021, encompasses both ongoing and planned initiatives from public as well as private research funders in the Nordic region. Initiatives from 18 public and 13 private organizations were included. “This report shows that the Nordic research funders are This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (orange) isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (gray) cultured in the lab. Image captured and colorized at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana. TRE ATMENT SYNACT PHARMA ANNOUNCES POSITIVE DATA Additional results have been reported from all treated patients in the Phase 2a clinical trial of AP1189 in COVID-19 infected patients with pulmonary insufficiency. AP1189 IS A once daily oral selective melanocortin agonist that specifically stimulates melanocortin receptors that are not involved in cortisol release, yielding an anti-inflammatory effect without unwanted steroid side effects. The study was designed with a part 1, where all patients were treated with AP1189, and a part 2, a randomized placebo-controlled study testing AP1189 vs placebo, giving a total of 60 treated patients. In this full dataset, AP1189 treated patients achieved respiratory recovery 4 days quicker than placebo treated patients. AP1189 treatment appeared to decrease the rate of progression to ventilator use by 57% with 7.1% and 16.7% of patients requiring a ventilator in the pooled AP1189 and placebo groups, respectively. In Brazil where the trial was conducted, the standard of care is to give steroids at hospitalization with confirmed COVID-19 infection, so all patients in this study had AP1189 or placebo added onto their concurrent steroid use. AP1189 was well tolerated and safe. capable of reacting quickly to a situation that demands rapid production of new knowledge to address major societal challenges,” says Arne Flåøyen, Director, NordForsk. “The question is whether the system has been sufficiently able to conduct good quality assurance of all these activities planned within such a short time span.” He also points to the opportunity for better coordination. “The vast majority of these research activities now underway are being carried out within just one country each. I believe it would have been advantageous to coordinate more activities across the Nordic region and establish more Nordic-wide projects. That would make it easier to cooperate on using data from multiple countries, and would raise the quality of the research.” Arne Flåøyen, Director, NordForsk 54 NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG CREDIT NIAID PHOTO KURT GAASØ