COVID 19 UPDATE, page-220

Hi pdi

thanks for a reasoned query, for a change for these threads. It can be broken down into two parts, as you intended. The first part certainly does remind us that any successful treatment with antivirals will be gained when used early. I've read this several times from reports dealing in treatment for COVID-19. And of course, we can all consider why this is the case using a priori knowledge: if the virus is the first cause of the illness, then preventing/limiting that cause will be beneficial in reducing complications developing.

However, your last statement in the first section requires looking at more closely (it probably belongs in the second section):

"antiviral medications would have someplace only in the early phase of disease but no difference in severe cases because it's an inflammatory process, not viremia, which causes deterioration."

Great, antivirals used early can have an effect. Considering that the entire world's health care system is presently being adapted to treat COVID-19, especially in industrialized nations, then the probability of early treatment is more likely than not. From here it becomes a matter of scale.

Therefore, late treatment of patients is less likely. There will be less cases, if any in an industrialized nation where a COVID patient will arrive at a hospital in an advances stage of the illness. Needless to say, treatment of such a non typical case won't involve only antivirals, but 'treatment' for ARDS.

We can conclude this part of the discussion like this. Severe cases don't start severe. They become so after a period when the immune system can't initiate a recovery response and then finally ARDS develops, or other complications from other pre-conditions. Not all early intervention, even with a successful antiviral, will prevent immune compromised patients necessarily beginning that recovery. There will be many cases in immune compromised cases that a viral infection will lead to mortality, even if delayed. Hopefully though, any new antiviral that does work in other cases will have an end of life benefit in severe cases.

The second part of your thesis is mostly about drug development process. We've discussed a lot of that here previously, and my quick answer is that there is a difference between this process when considered by the normal testing cycles, and those within pandemic conditions. But in both cases we also need to add the trading layer, where we are specifically interested in price catalysts, rather than final medical outcomes.

As such, there will be a catalyst soon that is likely to have enormous bearing on Biotron's COVID-19 work.

If I compare what Biotron's compounds might offer to other antiviral responses you briefly refer to, I suggest that we should stick to the basics of what we know. But rather than ignore HIV as not useful in the discussion, it does in fact show that at least in this case, present antivirals being used, as you say, are not a magic cure.

Enter Biotron. BIT225 just may become, when used in conjunction with other antivirals, the cure required. That is their ambition and so far are on track. That is why you said you are invested in them, no?

How does BIT225 work, and what is the synergy between it and say, BIT036 that was tested on coronaviruses and demonstrated very effectively the interruption of the ion channel activity specific to viral replication?

You are right that CoV is not HIV. The later has proven very stubborn, hiding where it does and preventing other antiviarls from being totally effective. Until now. The HIV Vpu ion channel is now known and breached, so long lasting reservoirs are exposed to the immune system.

SARS-CoV-2 does not so hide. It sits mostly in the lungs very visible and accessible. Maybe a new dedicated antiviral that works by preventing viral replication will stop lung inflammation in most or many cases of those normally effected as such,. For the 80% of cases where easier recovery occurs, such an antiviral may not even be necessary, but the hospitalizes cases of these will free beds quicker.

How long all this takes to develop is still an unknown, but we can be sure of one thing. It is going to take less time under the present circumstances. Furthermore, some of Biotron's compounds have already undergone significant in vitro and in vivo testing. This will help significantly.