A team in Germany is planning to launch a trial with the drug IMU-838 trial for Long Covid. Currently there aren’t too many details on the trial, however Maria Vehreschild of the Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt has given some details in this talk
www.vimeo.com/873993707/description (from 32:30 onwards). The plan is to do a RCT with 45mg of IMU-838 daily for 56 days, which is a higher dosage, albeit for a much shorter time, then is being used in the currently running Phase 3 trial for MS https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05134441.
She presents the ideas for the trial as follows:
It seems that they are hoping to aim at very similar mechanisms which this drug could possibly be addressing in MS (anti-inflammatory properties and possibly EBV reactivation). Very recently some positive trial results of the Phase 2 study in MS have been announced https://imux.com/immunic-reports-po...us-calcium-in-progressive-multiple-sclerosis/. The IMU-838 trials are the “top ranked” trials on this MS trial database (which however is run by patients focusing on the EBV-MS hypothesis)
www.docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_snDrKohhyyyF_RnR3oZRevFcMGJIBXlaMytpG9Ecus/edit#gid=1393287940.
The big caveat is that this drug is just a small update to already existing DHODH inhibitors (which could of course mean quite a bit for a person with MS) and I have never heard anybody suggest exploring these older DHODH inhibitors in Long Covid or ME/CFS, especially not with Rituximab failing.
There is also some data on the direct antiviral effects for SARS-COV-2 in vivo with the EC50 not being particularly great https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7762174/ with leflunomide and teriflunomide having similar EC50s https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36437966/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34111397/.
I’m sure @Jonathan Edwards will have some comments on this.
www.vimeo.com/873993707/description (from 32:30 onwards). The plan is to do a RCT with 45mg of IMU-838 daily for 56 days, which is a higher dosage, albeit for a much shorter time, then is being used in the currently running Phase 3 trial for MS https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05134441.
She presents the ideas for the trial as follows:
- blocks intracellular viral replication -> reduction of viral loads of SARS-COV-2, EBV, CMV, etc (dosage dependent inhibition of EBV reactivation in B-cells & to some degree reduces lytic infection in epithelial cells)
- reduces Lymphocyte activation -> less cytokines -> anti-inflammatory
It seems that they are hoping to aim at very similar mechanisms which this drug could possibly be addressing in MS (anti-inflammatory properties and possibly EBV reactivation). Very recently some positive trial results of the Phase 2 study in MS have been announced https://imux.com/immunic-reports-po...us-calcium-in-progressive-multiple-sclerosis/. The IMU-838 trials are the “top ranked” trials on this MS trial database (which however is run by patients focusing on the EBV-MS hypothesis)
www.docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_snDrKohhyyyF_RnR3oZRevFcMGJIBXlaMytpG9Ecus/edit#gid=1393287940.
The big caveat is that this drug is just a small update to already existing DHODH inhibitors (which could of course mean quite a bit for a person with MS) and I have never heard anybody suggest exploring these older DHODH inhibitors in Long Covid or ME/CFS, especially not with Rituximab failing.
There is also some data on the direct antiviral effects for SARS-COV-2 in vivo with the EC50 not being particularly great https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7762174/ with leflunomide and teriflunomide having similar EC50s https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36437966/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34111397/.
I’m sure @Jonathan Edwards will have some comments on this.
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