It is important that shareholders realise NOXCOVID-1 is NOT...

It is important that shareholders realise NOXCOVID-1 is NOT simply a safety study.  As stated in various announcements, NOXCOVID-1 is a proof-of-principle trial that will reveal whether Veyonda can stop disease progression.

There is a danger that vers37 will mislead shareholders with his contention that efficacy cannot be measured, so I wrote to the Company to seek its view.  This is the response from Graham Kelly:

• The safety issue is something that will need to be monitored over at least 2 weeks of treatment. We have not encountered any safety issues in any of the 120-plus cancer patients treated to date, and there is nothing in how Veyonda works to suggest we should have any safety concerns in COVID patients. However, it is a requirement with the first trial of an experimental drug in a new disease state that safety needs to be one of the primary end-points.

• On the uncontrolled nature of the NOXCOVID-1 trial, I assume you are referring to emerging COVID treatments such as dexamethasone. Dexamethasone is a potent anti-inflammatory that is used in severe cases.  The whole aim of our study is to stop patients progressing to the point of needing dexamethasone. So, no, this isn’t a tightly controlled study. But given that this is the first time anyone has had the opportunity to test the theory that blocking the STING pathway will block the development of the cytokine release syndrome and septic shock, we and the treating physicians have designed this study to cautiously and methodically ask 3 basic questions:

• Is Veyonda safe in this patient group?
• Will it stop progression of the disease into requiring intensive care?
• Does it block an increase in blood cytokine levels?

It will be a relatively simple job to determine whether any improvement in NOXCOVID-1 patients is attributable to Veyonda.  Analysis in the USA of before-and-after plasma samples, for instance, will reveal whether cytokine levels such as blood-clotting Factor III have reduced.

Please do not dismiss this trial as simply a safety study.  NOXCOVID is a carefully-designed trial that will demonstrate whether Veyonda has the potential to treat Coronavirus AND Septic Shock.