Covid, Rasi: “Drug on the way? Spring 2022 target”

An upcoming drug against covid? An additional weapon “could arrive in the spring of 2022. Last year alone, there were about a hundred drugs under examination by the EMA. I think there are some good candidates, I am optimistic”. So Guido Rasi, former executive director of the European drug agency Ema and advisor to General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, commissioner for the coronavirus emergency, answers the question of whether a drug that will cure Covid is finally on the way to Adnkronos Health. “There are two lines of research on this front”, recalls the expert: one concerns “drugs already known and used for other diseases, which can work against Covid. And then there are various families of antivirals on which there are studies and these act on the initial phase of the disease. From these candidates – hopes Rasi – a molecule could come, you promise. But what we must highlight – he specifies – is that today we know much more about the mechanisms of the coronavirus and this will allow us to better develop the drugs to combat it “. But on the front of the search for an anti-Covid weapon, what role is Italy playing? “Our scientists are involved, but often by chance and heroism because our system is still old”, highlights Rasi. innovation. In the Pnrr “, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan,” attention was paid to research with the desire to make an important investment, but the regulatory issue must be resolved. Often the time, the speed with which you invest, compared to the amount of the investment itself. Often – concludes Rasi – if the money is not paid at the right time and in the correct way, you risk wasting it “. Among the many drugs used for other diseases, but tested in the fight against Covid-19, “anakinra seems to be among the most promising, given that it has given good results, and could soon be out of the experimental phase to be used on patients in advanced stages of the disease”. ‘Save-More’, a study Phase I Clinician II on the anti-inflammatory anakinra in association with the current therapeutic standard in patients with moderate to severe Covid pneumonia, established that early use reduces the mortality of the seriously ill. The trial, which involved several Italian centers, was published in ‘Nature Medicine’.