• The European Medicines Agency has just announced the accelerated examination of an anti-Covid drug by the American laboratory, Merck.

  • On the other hand, the clinical trials of two promising treatments are still trampling, in Hauts-de-France.

  • The fault, at the beginning, with administrative red tape, then, today, with the lack of voluntary patients.

A two-speed search.

On the one hand, the European Medicines Agency has just announced the accelerated examination of an anti-Covid drug by the American laboratory Merck.

On the other hand, clinical trials of two promising treatments are still stalling in Hauts-de-France.

Why so much delay?

The first reason is the problem of recruiting sick people.

"It's a good thing that the disease is receding, we are not going to complain," says Xavier Nassif, director general of the Institut Pasteur de Lille.

The latter had discovered, in June 2020, a promising molecule that was already on the market to treat infectious diseases: clofoctol.

Centers in the West Indies

The anti-Covid potential of this drug had caught the attention of Lille scientists after a study on around 4,000 molecules, with the help of the Lille start-up Apteeus. However, since then, the health authorities have done little to speed up the trials. The last phase 3 clinical study, dubbed (ironically?) Therapide, could not start until early September. To date, around ten patients have taken part, while at least 350 are needed. Far too few to hope to rapidly validate the efficacy of clofoctol.

“Large laboratories benefit from much more resources than we do,” recognizes Xavier Nassif.

They can set up testing centers wherever the epidemic flares up in the world.

If we had the means to recruit in Eastern Europe or South America today, we could go faster ”.

Especially since voluntary patients must not have been vaccinated.

Pasteur was nevertheless able to open two new centers in the West Indies in an attempt to speed up the study.

There are more sick people than in the North and fewer people vaccinated.

“But I haven't had any recent news,” admits Xavier Nassif.

"Difficult to get our project accepted"

In Amiens, a team from the hospital center, placed under the responsibility of an infectious disease specialist, Jean-Philippe Lanoix, is examining the possible benefits of another treatment: the inhalation of an interferon, a protein that the body human manufactures to defend against respiratory infections.

Here too, the study, initiated by Dr. Aurélien Mary, clinical pharmacist, is dragging on.

“At the beginning, we struggled to get our project accepted.

We were faced with the clutter of clinical trials, ”notes Professor Michel Brazier, a pharmacist who is participating in this research on interferons.

In its initial phase, the study entitled COV-NI also experienced "difficulties, especially with three patients in intensive care", recognizes Michel Brazier.

However, it has been more than a year since the clinical trial was relaunched to include 142 patients.

Classified as a priority by national authorities, it was then the mistrust of patients that delayed the publication of the results.

"To date, we have only included 68 patients", regrets Michel Brazier, who nevertheless understands "the reluctance of certain patients to serve as guinea pigs".

"The disorder was thrown into the heads of patients with all the fake news that has spread," he laments.

The British ahead

However, he remains convinced of the effectiveness of interferons.

At the same time, “a British team from Southampton is also studying an interferon manufactured by it.

And it is much more advanced.

It opened centers in Europe and North America to deploy its phase 3 clinical trial, in order to recruit 600 patients.

Its financial resources are much greater than ours ”.

With its generic interferon "the cost of which will certainly be lower", according to Michel Brazier, the study at the Amiens-Picardie University Hospital is therefore progressing slowly, thanks to the collaboration and support of the Novartis laboratory and a start-up located in Caen.

This start-up studied on an artificial lung the distribution of the drug interferon throughout the respiratory tract.

“The search for treatments against viral infections remains very complicated to carry out.

There is none against influenza and it took thirty years to find one against hepatitis C, ”he puts into perspective.

While vaccination remains the most effective weapon, it is also useful to have effective antiviral treatment, scientists agree.

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