Izana Bioscience’s drug enters UK Covid-19 clinical trial

UK biopharmaceutical company Izana Bioscience has announced that its investigational therapy namilumab (IZN-101) is to be tested as the first potential treatment for Covid-19 in a new UK drug trial.

The drug is being used in the CATALYST trial, running in Birmingham and  in close collaboration with Oxford and University College London. The trial is testing a series of investigational and already approved drugs on hospitalised patients with Covid-19. Successful drugs will be recommended for further testing within large ongoing national trials.

Namilumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody already in late-stage trials to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Researchers in Bergamo and Milan, Italy, began in April investigating it as a potential Covid-19 treatment in a compassionate use study. 

The drug works by targeting a cytokine called GM-CSF (granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor), which is secreted by immune cells in the body. In controlled levels, GM-CSF is thought to be a key driver of the excessive and dangerous lung inflammation seen in Covid-19 patients.

The trial will determine whether treating patients with namilumab, before they are admitted to intensive care or require ventilation, can control the overactive inflammatory response known as the ‘cytokine storm’, reducing the risk of serious lung and other organ injury and eventual death.

Dr Someit Sidhu, chief executive and Co-founder of Izana Bioscience, said: “We are proud to be supporting the CATALYST trial led by the highly experienced team at University Hospital Birmingham, Europe’s largest integrated critical care centre. We believe namilumab can play a significant role in dampening the hyper-inflammation seen in patients with severe Covid-19 infection and are committed to working with regulators and partners across the world to ensure this potential therapy can be developed for patients with Covid-19 who urgently need effective treatments.”

Dr Ben Fisher, co-clinical investigator of the CATALYST trial from the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, said: “There has been a tremendous effort to pull together this initiative so rapidly. Emerging evidence is demonstrating a critical role for anti-inflammatory drugs in the cytokine storm associated with severe Covid-19 infection. In the CATALYST study we hope to show with a single dose of these kinds of drugs in hospitalised patients that we are able to delay or prevent the rapid deterioration into intensive care and requirement for invasive ventilation in this critical patient group.”