Published: 14 January 2022
- Has Israel found the cure for Covid? All about EXO-CD24 and Allocetra drugs
News arrives from Israel that could really reverse the course of the Covid-19 disease. A drug in particular would guarantee a very rapid recovery in 96.6% of cases
February 8, 2021
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In these days, news arrives from Israel that could really reverse the course of the Covid-19 disease. Together with monoclonal antibodies, finally approved also in Italy and defined by experts as "revolutionary" because they are able to heal even the most serious patients in a few simple steps, there could now also be a drug that not only promises very well, but could even go down in history as the first true drug against Coronavirus.
This is EXO-CD24, developed by researchers from the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv. Israeli scientists have stated that this drug would be able to treat even severe cases of Covid.
According to the clinical study conducted, 29 out of 30 patients with moderate to severe Coronavirus cases were treated with EXO-CD24 and experienced a "clear" recovery in just 2 days. An effectiveness of 96.6%. They were then released from the hospital 3 or 5 days later. The 30th patient also recovered, but after a longer period. In short, truly extraordinary results.
How EXO-CD24 works against Covid
The drug, developed by Professor Nadir Arber of the same hospital's Integrated Cancer Prevention Center, would be able to fight the dreaded cytokine storm, a life-threatening systemic inflammatory syndrome in which the immune system gets out of control and begins attacking cells. healthy, affecting the lungs in 5-7% of patients with Covid-19 and causing many deaths.
The medicine is administered by inhalation, once a day, in a procedure that takes only a few minutes, for 5 days. The protein is found on the surface of cells and has a well-known and important role in regulating the immune system, helping to "calm it down" and curb the storm.
It is based on the exosomes that the body releases from the cell membrane and uses for intercellular communication. "We enrich exosomes with the 24CD protein, which is known to play an important role in regulating the immune system," explained Arber's lab director, Shiran Shapira, who has been researching the CD24 protein for decades.
This advanced preparation can be produced quickly and efficiently and at a very low cost in every pharmaceutical facility in the country and in a short time globally, they assure. In addition, in addition to not causing side effects, this experimental treatment has two unique characteristics. The first is that it inhibits the excessive secretion of cytokines. The second is that it is administered directly to the lungs.
"Even if vaccines perform their function, and even if no new mutations are produced, one way or another Covid will stay with us," said Arber, "that's why we have developed a unique drug." The drug will now move on to further trial phases, although the hospital sees it as a potential game changer.
The other hope from the drug Allocetra
But there is not only EXO-CD24. Last week Enlivex Therapeutics reported positive results from a Phase II multicenter clinical trial of its investigational Covid-19 immunotherapy drug Allocetra in severe and critical Covid-19 patients.
As early as October, scientists reported that 5 ICU patients with Covid-19 had been discharged from the Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem after treatment with Allocetra. 9 patients with severe and 7 critical Covid-19 were treated with Allocetra in the Phase II clinical trial. 14 of them recovered and were discharged from the hospital after an average of 5.3 days.
Allocetra is based on the research of Dr. Dror Mevorach, scientific director of Enlivex, head of internal medicine and one of Hadassah's coronavirus wards. It actually works by restoring the balance of the immune system.
The Phase II study initially involved the enrollment of 24 patients, but was completed early. Most of the patients in both studies had pre-existing risk factors, such as male gender, obesity, and hypertension.
Overall, 19 of the 21 Phase II and Phase I patients treated with Allocetra recovered and were discharged from hospital after an average of 5.6 days. Phase II patients who have been discharged from the hospital are currently healthy.
“The results we have seen of the 12 Covid-19 patients treated to date with Allocetra are exciting,” said prof. Vernon van Heerden, head of the Hadassah General Intensive Care Unit and lead investigator of both clinical trials.
Therefore, also for Allocetra, the effects on serious and critical Covid-19 patients could be extraordinary, as well as for all those patients who suffer from cytokine storms and organ dysfunctions in various clinical indications, potentially lethal, with high medical needs or high mortality .
What vaccines say in Israel
Good news from Israel also comes about vaccines. To date, nearly 90% of people aged 60 and over in the country have received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The American company has just recently decided to accelerate the production of the vials because, experts say, the risk of it becoming ineffective is very high.
Researchers are observing that Covid vaccines are helping to curb infections and hospitalizations among the elderly, almost 6 weeks after they were injected.
The country is the first to release data based on an analysis of around a quarter of a million Covid-19 infections and showing vaccines work in such a large group of people, following news two weeks ago that the vials appeared to reduce infections in vaccinated people.
Data collected by the Israeli Ministry of Health shows that there was a 41% drop in confirmed Coronavirus infections in that age group and a 31% drop in hospitalizations from mid-January to early February. By comparison, for people aged 59 and under, of whom just over 30% were vaccinated, cases fell by only 12% and hospitalizations by 5% over the same period.
Vaccines have contributed to the decline in cases and hospitalizations of older people, because the cases themselves were greater and occurred earlier in that age group than in young people. And the difference in the number of cases between people over the age of 60 and young people was most pronounced in cities where at least 85 percent of seniors had received their first vaccine dose in early January.
However, the decline in case numbers and hospitalizations may not be solely due to vaccines. In January 2021, the Tel Aviv government imposed a nationwide lockdown in response to the dramatic acceleration of the epidemic in Israel.
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