Btobioinnovation.com

Author: Jean-Claude Muller, 穆卓Executive Editor at BtoBioInnovation  jcm9144@gmail.com

SPECIAL REPORT #20.12

Coronavirus Treatment Tracking

Kevzara from Sanofi and Regeneron and Actemra from Roche are both selective interleukin- 6 (IL-6) inhibitors, approved for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, which have recently been tentatively repurposed to treat COVID-19.

Yesterday the fate of these two products took different paths.

Sanofi and Regeneron indicated that they would slow down on their current ongoing phase 3 study with Kevzara (sarilumab) after early results did not meet the expectations in severely ill coronavirus patients. The previous study has now been amended with a higher dose (400 mg of Kevzara) to include only patients requiring mechanical ventilation, a subset where a small positive outcome had been identified.

At the same time, a report from a program at the Assitance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) suggests that Actemra (tocilizumab) from Roche did “significantly” better in reducing the number of deaths or needs for ventilators at day 14, although the full data have not been disclosed. The ongoing CORIMUNO-19 program which encompasses several other trials on COVID-19 had enrolled 129 patients with moderate to severe cases in a randomized trial. Roche indicated that the results gathered from 65 patients treated for up to 14 days with Actemra versus 64 patients receiving standard of care, are “early data”. AP-HP internal sources told us that the results of the study are being analysed by a peer review body and will be sent for publication in the days to come.

The most frenzy media attention is now focused on Roche’s own phase 3 COVACTA study with Actemra, which started three weeks ago, and where a full dataset will soon become available.

Hope you are all doing fine

Paris, April 28, 2020

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