The first domestic oral medication report for the new crown: treatment within 5 days is critical

　　On May 18, the first domestic treatment report on the oral drug for COVID-19 was released.

The paper shows that 5 infected people received the oral drug within 3 days after the nucleic acid test was positive, and the nucleic acid turned negative after an average of 5 days (median), while the median of the nucleic acid turned negative in the control group was 11.13 days. .

From the data alone, early treatment and early medication may cut the treatment cycle in half.

　　Relevant research was carried out by the National Center for Infectious Diseases Medical Center, Professor Zhang Wenhong, Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, and the team of Professor Fan Xiaohong from Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, to evaluate the effect of a domestically-made new crown oral drug named VV116 on non-severe cases of mysterious diseases. The influence of the time of nucleic acid turning negative in Chron-infected patients.

Detailed data from the study were published online May 18 in the journal Emerging Microbes & Infections.

　　What is VV116

　　VV116 is an oral anti-new coronavirus drug developed by research institutions such as the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and enterprises.

　　Relevant research and development units have previously disclosed that the team of Shen Jingshan, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other teams found in experiments on an adenovirus mouse model that oral administration of VV116 could reduce the virus titer below the detection limit and significantly improve the lung tissue pathology of experimental model animals. Variety.

The drug was approved for the treatment of COVID-19 in Uzbekistan at the end of last year, and has been approved for clinical trials in China.

　　The industry is more optimistic about VV116 and believes that it has the potential to become an effective drug for the treatment of the new crown.

Relevant experts explained in an interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Daily that the basic principle of VV116 attacking the new coronavirus is similar to that of Remdesivir. It is the core enzyme for attacking the new coronavirus. The greater advantage of VV116 is that it can be taken orally.

　　When the new coronavirus is self-synthesized in the human body, VV116 can disguise "adulteration", making the RNA polymerase of the new coronavirus "stuck" and unable to replicate and reproduce in the human body.

　　Research suggests: Dosing within 5 days after positive is critical

　　In the study, 136 new coronavirus infected patients were divided into two groups according to their own wishes: 60 received the domestic new crown oral drug VV116 treatment, 300 mg of VV116 orally every 12 hours; 76 were included in the control group and did not use antiviral treatment.

Both groups of participants will receive anti-inflammatory and other symptomatic treatment.

　　The data shows that the time of nucleic acid conversion to negative for Omicron-infected patients who used VV116 within 5 days of the first nucleic acid test was 8.56 days, which was less than 11.13 days for the control group.

　　However, if the drug is not taken in time after the positive, the effect of the drug will be difficult to show.

The specific data are as follows: Omicron-infected patients who used VV116 5 days after the first nucleic acid test were positive, the nucleic acid conversion time was 11.46 days, and the control group was 11.13 days, and the two were almost the same.

　　The data showed that patients would experience greater benefit if the drug was administered within 5 days.

This pattern did not appear in VV116, and it was also suggested in studies related to approved new crown drugs (such as monupavir and paciclovir).

It can be seen that early treatment and early intervention will greatly shorten the infection time.

　　The study also collected drug safety data for VV116.

The results showed that there were no serious adverse events, 7 cases reported mild abnormal liver function, 1 case reported increased blood urea, and 1 case reported increased white blood cell count, all of which were relieved and recovered without intervention.

　　Small Molecule Drugs or Better Protection Against Mutation

　　Since the Omicron variant became the mainstream strain of the new crown pandemic, several studies have shown that the variant can successfully escape the neutralizing antibody drugs that have been developed.

　　For example, a paper published in the journal Nature late last year evaluated nine neutralizing antibodies at the time, and found that five were completely ineffective and two had 20-fold reduction in effective activity.

　　A previous study by Zhang Wenhong's team compared the changes in the neutralization ability of 20 neutralizing antibodies to Omicron, Omicron sublines, and different mutation sites, suggesting that a large number of neutralizing antibodies are or have been "successful by the virus". escape".

Although a small number of antibodies have not escaped, given the mutagenic nature of RNA viruses (the new coronavirus is an RNA virus), drug resistance may develop if it is administered long-term as a monotherapy, the researchers said.

　　Under this premise, small molecule anti-coronavirus drugs have high hopes.

The good news is that more and more small-molecule antiviral drugs have been shown to remain effective against variants of the new coronavirus, such as paciclovir, which has been approved for marketing, and VV116, which is reported today.

　　Reporter Zhang Jiaxing