New Covid-19 treatment for patients with diabetes shows early promise

A new Covid-19 treatment for people with diabetes has shown promising results in a trial led by UCL researchers. The trial was conducted by St George Street Capital (SGSc) - a medical research charity - with the the goal to find new purposes, where there is a real clinical need, for drugs that have already passed safety checks Professors John Martin (UCL Division of Medicine) and Pete Coffey (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) founded the charity along with an American philanthropist to trial new medicines four years ago. They focused on a number of medicines shown to be safe in phase I clinical trials which had been abandoned by the pharmaceutical industry, but may still be beneficial for other purposes. Over the last year, SGSc have been trialling a drug (AZD1656) in diabetic patients. The drug was gifted to the charity by Astra Zeneca. The team recognised that it could activate cells  from the immune system as a potential treatment for people with the SARS-CoV-2 virus by dampening the overactive response of the immune system which causes damage to the organs in the body, particularly the heart and lungs. The trial reduced the number of deaths in patients receiving AZD1656, a promising finding which will need to be analysed further by the researchers, when cellular immunology results become available, before the study results undergo peer review. The reduced mortality for patients on AZD1656 was observed on top of benefits from other medications, such as dexamethasone, as part of standard of care. AZD1656 was shown to be well-tolerated with no serious adverse reactions occurring.