In news to hand, Germany takes a stake in COVID-19 vaccine...

In news to hand, Germany takes a stake in COVID-19 vaccine drugmaker CureVac. The German government no less has invested €300m into CureVac to boost its chances of creating an effective vaccine for COVID-19.

Stop Press. The article Pulmonary fibrosis and COVID-19: the potential role for antifibrotic therapy, published in the Lancet in May 2020 releases its findings that COVID-19 leads to a wide spectrum of respiratory diseases with an extremely high incidence of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and that the burden of fibrotic lung disease following infection is likely to be high. The authors recommend that clinical trials of antifibrotic molecules should be considered.

At some point in time government, the media and or the scientific community will connect the dots and find out we need to begin to address the health consequences of the aftermath of COVID-19. According to the aforementioned article, a substantial proportion of patients who develop ARDS and survive the acute phase of the illness die as a result of progressive pulmonary fibrosis.

Returning to CureVac, one may be interested to know that a Phase 1 study in healthy volunteers has been completed which clears the way to launch a Phase 1/2a. AdAlta may have taken a tortuous road to get to the clinic but it will likewise commence a clinical trial in healthy volunteers. The medical, scientific and governmental will to make new therapies for IPF succeed is about to become more urgent.