Vicore Pharma’s C21 med shows promise in COVID-19 study

Vicore Pharma’s lead candidate drug C21 has scored some promising results in a study evaluating the medicine in hospitalised COVID-19 patients.

The ATTRACT study recruited a total of 106 hospitalised patients with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis and signs of an acute respiratory infection without the need for mechanical ventilation.

The patients were randomised to receive either oral treatment with C21 or placebo for seven days, on top of standard-of-care.

In an expanded data analysis of this study, the data showed a restoration of lung function in COVID-19 patients treated with C21.

In a statement, Vicore said that these results suggest “C21 can become an important complement to vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic”.

In a subgroup analysis of patients requiring supplemental oxygen, C21 also produced a greater reduction of C-reactive protein (CRP) compared to the placebo arm.

In previously reported results, C21 treatment reduced the number of patients needing mechanical ventilation and a trend for C21 reducing mortality.

“The critical incident in COVID-19 that makes this disease different to a common cold is the progression to the distal airways with respiratory distress and subsequent need for oxygen supplementation”, said Carl-Johan Dalsgaard, chief executive officer of Vicore Pharma.

“Our data clearly show that C21 can restore lung function on top of steroids and normalise gas exchange. A safe oral medication with such properties can become an important complement to vaccines to combat the pandemic,” he added.

C21 is an oral angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2R) agonist that is designed to activate the ‘protective arm’ of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS).

It has shown ‘robust’ effects in human idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) lung slices and is currently in a phase II proof-of-concept study in this indication.