Candidate: Bemcentinib
Type: Selectively AXL kinase inhibitor designed to fight COVID-19 by blocking viral entry and enhance anti-viral type I interferon response.
Status: BerGenBio said April 28 that bemcentinib was selected as the first potential treatment to be fast-tracked in the Accelerating COVID-19 Research & Development (ACCORD) platform. The U.K. national multi-center randomized Phase II study is designed to assess the drug’s effectiveness in treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients, BerGenBio said. A total 120 patients will participate—half randomized to bemcentinib, the other half control-group patients receiving standard of care treatment.
ACCORD brings together a single, UK-wide clinical trial platform provided by the clinical research company IQVIA and the UK’s National Institute for Health Research, in order to rapidly test potential drugs through early stage clinical trials and feed them into larger U.K. COVID-19 studies such as the Randomised Evaluation of COVID Therapy (RECOVERY) trial, currently the world’s largest randomized controlled clinical trial for COVID-19 treatment.
ACCORD is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
COVID-19: 200 Candidates and Counting
To navigate through the >200 potential therapeutic and vaccine options for COVID-19, GEN has grouped the candidates into four broad categories based on their developmental and (where applicable) clinical progress:
● FRONT RUNNER – the most promising therapeutics/vaccines based on clinical progress, favorable data or both.
● DEFINITELY MAYBE – earlier phases with promising partners, or more advanced candidates in development that have generated uneven data.
● KEEPING AN EYE ON… – interesting technology, attracting notable partners, or both, but preliminary data.
● TOO SOON TO TELL – longshots pending additional experimental and/or clinical data.
GEN has also tagged the most common treatment types:
● ANTIVIRAL
● VAX
● ANTIBODY
● RNA
