Japanese heartburn drug to be tested on coronavirus patients
Danish researchers are standing by to involve hospitals in all Danish regions in testing.
A Japanese drug – camostat mesylate – is on its way to Denmark. According to plan, it will be tested on a total of 180 coronavirus patients at hospitals across the country.
If the Danish authorities give the necessary authorisation over the weekend, testing can begin next week.
In three to four months, we will already know whether camostat mesylate can slow the ravage of the coronavirus in people who are infected – and who have developed COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
If the drug has this effect, it could prevent some COVID-19 patients from becoming so life-threateningly ill as to require respirator support. This, in turn, will reduce the coronavirus mortality rate.
Researchers from Aarhus University Hospital are behind the trial: Mads Fuglsang Kjølby, associate professor at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, and Ole Schmeltz Søgaard, associate professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases.
The researchers have received an emergency grant of DKK 5 million from the Lundbeck Foundation to conduct the trial with camostat mesylate.
The drug is produced in Japan and is approved by the Japanese medicines agency as a prescriptive drug for heartburn and pancreatitis.
It may seem strange that researchers are turning to a drug for heartburn to throw a spanner in the works of coronavirus. But there is logic behind their decision.
Mads Fuglsang Kjølby and Ole Schmeltz Søgaard explain that foreign studies proved that the Japanese medicine is able to curb an older strain of the coronavirus:
The two researchers have therefore applied to the Research Ethics Committee and the Danish Medicines Agency for permission to initiate the trial, which will involve coronavirus wards at hospitals across all of the Danish regions.
Strict Japanese requirements
But how safe is it to use camostat mesylate in the fight against coronavirus?
Camostat mesylate has been tested on the old strain of coronavirus in both cell trials and animal trials, where it was given to mice infected with coronavirus.
If camostat mesylate works as expected, the demand for it will be great. However, Mads Kjølby does not believe that this will be a problem: