(Reuters) -Synairgen said on Monday its inhalable therapy failed an international late-stage trial testing the treatment in patients hospitalised with COVID-19, in a blow to the development of the British drugmaker’s key product.
SNG001, an inhalable formulation containing the broad-spectrum antiviral protein interferon beta, is also being tested in a late-stage COVID-19 trial sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Results from that trial are yet to be announced.
“While we are disappointed by the overall outcome, SNG001 has been administered to hospitalised patients on top of standard of care which changed substantially between our Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials,” Chief Executive Officer Richard Marsden said.
“This improvement in patient care may have compromised the potential of SNG001,” he said, adding that the company was now analysing the full dataset from the “Sprinter” trial.
As part of Sprinter, 623 patients were given SNG001 or placebo on top of the standard treatment at random, to test whether it cut down their hospital stay and how long the patients took to recover.
Interferon beta is a naturally occurring protein instrumental to the body’s antiviral responses.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Shounak Dasgupta)
