⁍ Critically ill COVID-19 patients recovered rapidly from respiratory failure after three days of treatment with RLF-100.

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⁍ In June the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted fast-track designation to RLF-100.

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⁍ RLF-100 is being administered on an emergency basis to some patients too ill to be admitted to the trial.

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– An experimental drug is showing promise in the fight against a deadly form of SARS, according to two drug companies. The FDA has granted fast-track status to RLF-100, a synthetic form of a natural peptide that protects the lung, reports Reuters. The drug, or aviptadil, is being developed by Relief Therapeutics Holdings and NeuroRx, both of which are based in Switzerland. It is currently being used in a US clinical trial with 70 patients, but it is being administered on an emergency basis to some who are too ill to take part. The first report of rapid recovery under emergency use was posted by doctors from Houston Methodist Hospital. It said a 54-year-old man who developed COVID-19 while being treated for rejection of a double lung transplant came off a ventilator within four days of treatment with RLF-100. Similar results were subsequently seen in more than 15 patients treated under emergency use, the companies said. Independent researchers in a biocontainment lab in Brazil also reported that aviptadil blocked replication of the SARS coronavirus in human lung cells and immune cells. “No other antiviral agent has demonstrated rapid recovery from viral infection and demonstrated laboratory inhibition of viral replication,” says NeuroRx CEO Jonathan Javitt. The clinical trials are looking at whether similar observations will be confirmed for less ill patients with COVID-19-related respiratory failure.