https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/04/03/a-bill-gates-backed-accelerator-for-covid-19-coronavirus-therapeutics-treatment-partners-with-madonna-and-mark-zuckerbergs-chan-zuckerberg-initiative/#45ea3cc08067The Accelerator has started by looking at how existing drugs can help treat COVID-19, and has two trials going: one for the drug chloroquine, and the other for hydroxychloroquine. It is specifically looking at how these drugs fare for prophylaxis — meaning whether the two drugs stop people who are exposed to the virus from getting sick. This is different from the World Health Organization’s solidarity trial, which is specifically looking at chloroquine to see if it can help shorten the duration of symptoms for those diagnosed with COVID-19.
The Accelerator group is testing the hypothesis — partly based on existing data — that hydroxychloroquine could be a good candidate for protection against contracting the COVID-19 disease. “It actually blocks the entry of the virus into the cell,” wrote Trevor Mundel, president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a written Q&A. “If you have the drug in your system and you get exposed, you won’t let the virus get into your cells and you won’t get the onset of disease. That is what the trials are aimed at showing,” he wrote.
The Gates Foundation stated that the fund will be looking at other drugs as well, and that it does not expect to find right away the one drug that can cure coronavirus. Mundel compared the possible coronavirus treatment to those for HIV or tuberculosis, which are typically treated with a mixture of drugs. “That’s why the Accelerator is looking to identify a shortlist of about 50–100 FDA-approved drugs, and then narrow this down to a few that could be scaled up,” Mundel wrote. “And what this will look like is, first trying to use individual drugs, and then of course combinations of those individual drugs.”
