New COVID-19 Treatment Being Tested In Riverside County

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Riverside University Health System is partnering with Louisiana State University and Calgary, Canada-based Skymount Medical to conduct clinical trials of an oral COVID-19 treatment that has an artificial intelligence platform, it was announced Thursday.

Researchers will examine the combined effects of the FDA-approved cancer drug imatinib and the FDA-approved anti-parasitic drug mebendazole on patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 and who do not require hospitalization, Riverside County health officials announced.

The testing will be conducted at RUHS Medical Center’s Comparative Effectiveness & Clinical Outcomes Research Center in Moreno Valley.

"In labs, we observed that imatinib showed good antiviral properties in combination with mebendazole. This is partly why we are conducting this study to determine whether both medications can effectively and safely work against COVID-19," according to a statement from Riverside University Health System Medical Center.

While the two-drug oral combination has not yet been tested on COVID-19 patients, predictive studies leveraged by LSU’s artificial intelligence technology have shown the combination is up to 97 percent effective in reducing the viral load in cell and animal studies with COVID-19, county health officials said.

The study will be a double-blind intervention conducted in an outpatient setting, comparing the new two-drug combination to a placebo. The goal of the study is to determine the impact the combination therapy has on decreasing the length and severity of symptoms without negative side effects. The study will also evaluate if the combination drug can help decrease the need to be hospitalized, according to county health officials.

DeepDrug, the artificial intelligence platform behind the oral therapeutic, was created by a team of LSU researchers led by Supratik Mukhopadhyay, associate professor in the LSU Department of Computer Science. The DeepDrug platform uses AI to reduces the time and cost of drug discovery by up to 90 percent, according to Mukhopadhyay.

“It’s very gratifying to see this medication enter into the human study phase,” Mukhopadhyay said. “The fact that we are at this stage so quickly is due to Skymount Medical’s vast professional medical network and the DeepDrug platform, which was able to discover this particular combination of medications in a fraction of the time that traditional research takes."

Similar studies are already underway in Europe. If the new oral therapeutic for COVID-19 receives final approval, Skymount Medical said it intends to make the treatment widely available and cost-effective.

“Artificial intelligence and our preclinical cell and animal research show this combination therapy is up to 97 percent effective in reducing the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 virus, without non-specific toxicity. We also know it’s safe when given to animals,” said Kishor Wasan, Skymount Medical’s Chief Medical & Scientific Officer, Distinguished University Scholar Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and co-inventor of the therapeutic combination.

The clinical research study has been ruled FDA Investigational New Drug Exempt by the local Institutional Review Board, the county said.

RUHS Medical Center Infectious Disease Physician Bruce Weng will inform COVID-19 patients that they are eligible to participate in the study.

“Unfortunately, California has its fair share of COVID-19 cases,” Weng said. “The one silver lining in this is that the sample size at our hospital is substantial enough to produce valuable data when evaluating the safety and efficacy of this drug combination. This is a pilot study and 100 percent voluntary. The safety of our patients is paramount, and we will stay in constant contact with those choosing to participate to ensure their health and well-being.”

In many cases, symptoms completely clear up for COVID-positive patients, while others have suffered lingering symptoms after recovering.

“The combination may also show promise in reducing long-haul syndrome, the long-term consequences some patients report even after recovering from COVID-19, such as mental health issues and damage to organs, among other symptoms,” Wasan said.