Researchers at Hebrew University have proven that the fat-lowering drug TriCor (generic name Fenofibrate) was effective in reducing inflammation among hospitalized patients who had severe COVID. The readily available drug, which is used to treat high lipid levels in the blood, was found to be effective in combating COVID symptoms in patients.
According to SRN News, the investigator-initiated interventional open-label clinical study was led by Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, director of the Grass Center for Bioengineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Professor Nahmias gave 15 patients hospitalized with severe COVID 145 mg of TriCor everyday for 10 days and monitored each patient's disease progression.
The common drug was given to patients at Israel's Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon and the study, which was published on Research Square, was supported by Abbott Laboratories. It is currently under peer review.
"What we saw is that their inflammatory markers dropped very, very fast," Prof. Nahmias told The Media Line. "Within 48 hours of receiving the drug, they simply didn't have inflammation at all. There was no overreaction of the immune system as we usually expect to see in severe patients."
The Israeli study results showed that 14 out of the 15 patients hospitalized with severe COVID no longer needed respiratory support after five to seven days of taking 145mg of TriCor, versus only 28.5% of patients with severe COVID in a historical control group. The single patient who continued to require respiratory support eventually recovered and was released from the hospital. All 15 patients in the study were aged above 47, with a median age of 64. Some patients had several comorbidities, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.
Now, the scientists believe that they have found a "silver bullet" for the affordable and easily accessible treatment of COVID. Prof. Nahmias said, "Altogether, this is a very strong result," saying that severe COVID usually takes several weeks to treat.
"It's highly statistically significant even though it's a small study because we took markers every two days and we could actually show a dramatic effect on the time course of the disease," the professor explained.
COVID has been recently found to cause an abnormal increase in lipids, which causes lipotoxicity, which is a severe kind of inflammation. Fenofibrate or TriCor has been FDA-approved since 1975 and is commonly used to treat cholesterol symptoms and lower triglycerides in the blood.
Professor Nahmias believes that while their study focused on severe COVID infections, more studies can prove that the common drug will be able to treat mild to moderate cases of COVID to help speed up recovery.
Arguing that fenofibrates has been taken by millions of patients throughout the decades, Prof. Nahmias said, "What we'resuggesting here is a 10-day treatment and it's a very, very safe drug. Its side effects are mild even in long-term treatments."
Barzilai Medical Center's Infectious Disease Division Prof. Shlomo Maayan, who coordinated the study, said that a double-blind study must be conducted to enable better acceptance of fenofibrates as a treatment for COVID.
