Abstract
Research from Sanford Burnham Prebys has found a potential treatment for people who become infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus – clofazimine, a decades-old treatment for leprosy.
“Clofazimine is an ideal candidate for a COVID-19 treatment. It is safe, affordable, easy to make, taken as a pill, and can be made globally available,” said co-senior author of the Nature paper Sumit Chanda, Ph.D., professor and director of the immunity and pathogenesis program at Sanford Burnham Prebys.
Clofazimine's capacity to treat COVID-19 was initially identified by screening more than 12,000 drugs from the ReFRAME drug library—one of the most comprehensive collections of compounds that have been approved by the FDA for other diseases or that have been tested extensively for human safety.
In this study, clofazimine was found to inhibit viral spike-mediated cell fusion and viral helicase activity. In a hamster model of infection, prophylactic or therapeutic administration of clofazimine significantly reduced viral load in the lung and fecal viral shedding, and “also mitigated inflammation associated with viral infection.”
Clofazimine also worked synergistically with remdesivir when given to hamsters infected with SARS-CoV-2, suggesting a potential opportunity to stretch the availability of remdesivir, which is costly and in limited supply.
A Phase II trial evaluating clofazimine in combination with interferon beta-1b as a treatment for people with COVID-19 who are hospitalized is ongoing at the University of Hong Kong. “Our data suggests that clofazimine should also be tested as a mono-therapy for people with COVID-19, which would lower many barriers to treatment,” said Chanda.