I think the focus is on ARDS not Covid-19. ARDS has been with us way before Covid-19, and will continue well beyond Covid-19.
IMHO the key issue at hand is that COVID-19 has urgently lead Mesoblast into a Phase 2/3 Trial, a trial they are looking to complete by September ( I could be wrong), which happens to be in line with Ryoncil approval.
I suspect, if successful we could get a double whammy of FDA approvals.
Please refer the following read I found on ARDS (Note - I have no idea on its accuracy)
https://www.faron.com/patients-and-physicians/information-ardsARDS treatment and survival
ARDS treatment
ARDS patients are treated in an intensive care setting. The goal of the treatment is to improve blood oxygenation levels and to provide supportive treatment. No pharmaceutical treatments indicated for ARDS are available. Stem cell therapies and neuromuscular blockage are being tested for ARDS.
ARDS survival
The annual ARDS incidence in Europe is ca. 125 000 patients and in the USA ca. 170 000 patients.
ARDS is the leading cause of respiratory failure in intensive care unit patients requiring mechanical ventilation and oxygen therapy. Despite progress in critical care medicine, ARDS is currently associated with a mortality rate of 30 to 45% depending on the severity of the condition. Although ARDS mortality has decreased in the last decade due to improvements in supportive care and in the treatment of the underlying conditions, the mortality rate remains high.
Long term exposure to a respiratory syndrome like ARDS can also cause permanent loss of lung capacity due to a fibrotic process that replaces lung alveoli with scar tissue. This serious side effect of ARDS results in permanently reduced respiratory capacity.
Patients who recover from ARDS may suffer other consequences of ARDS after being discharged from the intensive care unit. A recovering patient’s quality of life may be severely adversely affected by permanent damage to the lungs, respiratory problems, renal dysfunction, muscle weakness and depression.
The burden of ARDS
What are the costs and outcomes of ARDS?
ARDS is a devastating condition with a profound impact on individuals, families, caregivers and the entire society. ARDS is associated with a long initial ICU stay and hospitalization leading to muscle wasting and cognitive impairment. This causes significant direct costs from the initial hospitalization as well as long term disability and loss in quality of life making treating ARDS efficiently a public health priority.
The averagelength of stay in the ICU because of ARDS is 25 days, and the average length of hospitalization is 47 days. It is estimated that ARDS accounts for 3.6 million hospital days each year in the USA. Over 100,000 patients each year will survive ARDS in the USA and presentprolonged morbidity and costs. After a year from surviving the disease only 49% of patients can return to work. The average annualloss in earnings of an ARDS patient is $27,000. An average of 13% of ARDS patients will needpermanent renal replacement therapy, i.e. dialysis. The annual cost of dialysis is $89,000/patient. Thus, out of 100,000 surviving patients 13,000 will need dialysis and form a cost of $1.16 billion each year. This cost accumulates each year with an additional 13,000 new cases of dialysis and a cost of $1.16 billion (company estimate).
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