Biologics and Small Molecules in the Treatment of COVID-19

June 2020 | Volume 19 | Issue 6 | Features | 673 | Copyright © June 2020


Published online May 20, 2020

Dedee F. Murrell MD,a Lidia Rudnicka MD,b Swathi Shivakumar MBBS MD,c Martin Kassir MD,d Mohammad Jafferany MD,e Hassan Galadari MD,f Torello Lotti MD,g Roxanna Sadoughifar MD,h Zuzanna Sitkowska MS,i Mohamad Goldust MDj

aDepartment of Dermatology, St George Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia bDepartment of Dermatology, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland cCosmetiq Clinic, Pettah-Chacka Road, Trivandrum, Kerala, India dFounding director, Worldwide laser institute, Dallas, TX eCentral Michigan University, Saginaw, MI fCollege of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates gUniversity of Studies Guglielmo Marconi, Rome, Italy hUniversity of Rome G. Marconi, Rome, Italy; Bidarskincenter Tehran, Iran iDepartment of Dermatology, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland jUniversity of Rome G. Marconi, Rome, Italy; Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland




and inhibit signal transduction. It was found to be effective in managing critically ill COVID-19 patients in China, when combined with the regular treatment.18

Siltuximab, another chimeric monoclonal antibody against IL-6, is also under clinical trials at present.15

One of the major causes of death in COVID-19 is the unpredictable development of ARDS, as with SARS and MERS. After each of these epidemics, no funding was continued to investigate the causes and risk factors for the development of ARDS. It is imperative that teams taking care of these patients prospectively store samples of their serum and genomic DNA samples from both patients and controls who are infected but not as symptomatic, so that afterwards, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and other techniques can be adopted to investigate what genetic acytokine response factors are involved in the development of SARS or myocarditis, another major cause of death in COVID-19 patients. Experts in conducting such case-control studies in multifactorial diseases are already among the field in dermatology.19 A team of such talent could work in the background against this virus, just as the codebreakers did during World War II.

Taking a closer look at our toolbox in medicine is worthwhile when new diseases such as COVID-19 arise. We need to draw on the experience of every specialty when developing treatments for new, challenging illnesses. Biologics and small molecules offer a promising role in management of severe cases of COVID-19.

DISCLOSURE

Prof. Dedee Murrell is an investigator and on the advisory board for: Principiabio; Sanofi; Roche; Menlo; Janssen; Sun Pharma; Pfizer.

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