Cancer drug stops SARS-CoV-2 in the lab

Plitidepsin, a drug approved by the Australian Regulatory Agency for the treatment of multiple myeloma, has potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to researchers at the UCSF QBI Coronavirus Research Group (QCRG) and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York.

In laboratory experiments reported in Science, plitidepsin, a compound originally discovered in a Mediterranean sea squirt, was 27.5 times more potent against SARS-CoV-2 than remdesivir, an existing treatment for COVID-19. In addition, in two animal models of COVID-19, plitidepsin showed a 100-fold reduction in viral replication in the lungs and demonstrated an ability to reduce lung inflammation.

“If you get a drug that targets a human protein, it would be incredibly hard for the virus to mutate away from being reliant on it,” QBI Director Nevan Krogan, PhD, told the San Francisco Chronicle. QBI is an Organized Research Unit in the School of Pharmacy.

The studies were conducted in close collaboration with PharmaMar, a Spanish pharmaceutical company that first isolated plitidepsin (trade name Aplidin).

More

• Cancer Drug Shows Potent Activity in the Lab Against SARS-CoV-2, Including B.1.1.7 Variant (UCSF News)
• The UCSF-led team racing to find a COVID cure may have found a promising candidate (SF Chronicle)