Only for one season??? I feel duped! đ This is an example of incremental progress!
Apparently, the only major benefit of this new drug is that it is more broad spectrum than the usual flu shots, which are targeting only a few strains. Hower, if it is indeed more broad spectrum why do we still need these shots every year to be protected? Hopefully, in the next incremental step, they will attempt to reduce the frequency of shots form every year to perhaps every few years.
Is the AAAS doing advertisement for a pharmaceutical company?
It appears the AAAS also confuses comparisons with the placebo to comparisons with competitor products.
"Flu vaccines spare people severe illness and save many lives, but they have notoriously limited impact when their ingredients don’t match circulating strains of the virus, and the immunity they trigger quickly wanes.
Now, a new approach that relies on a single shot of a long-lasting flu drug outperformed vaccines in a clinical trial—and may one day replace or supplement them. “This this is one of the most exciting recent advances for influenza prevention,” ...
The study enrolled 5000 healthy adults before the flu season started and followed them until after it ended. The highest dose of the drug provided 76.1% protection from disease compared to a placebo shot, reported the developer, Cidara Therapeutics, on 23 June. The effectiveness of the seasonal flu vaccine, as the company stressed in a press release about the results, is only about 40%.
Cidara’s drug, CD388, contains a reformulated version of zanamivir that GSK brought to market in 1999 and that’s approved to both treat and prevent disease. But zanamivir, which targets the viral enzyme neuraminidase, must be repeatedly inhaled. To create a longer-lasting version, Cidara developed a chemical variant of the drug and attached several copies of it to a piece of an antibody called the Fc fragment, engineered to resist being broken down by the human body. The company plans to launch a phase 3 efficacy trial next year."
"... In contrast, CD388 is effective against a wide variety of strains, a study in mice ... shows. ..."
"A new clinical trial shows a single shot of a long-lasting flu drug may protect people for an entire season [???], and it might do so more effectively than vaccines."
From the abstract:
"The ability of influenza virus to undergo rapid antigenic shift to elude humoral immunity highlights the need for effective broad-spectrum influenza antivirals for treatment, prophylaxis and pandemic preparedness. Strategies providing durable, universal influenza protection in healthy and high-risk populations are urgently needed. Here we describe the design and preclinical characterization of CD388, a first-in-class antiviral drug–Fc conjugate (DFC), in mice and cynomolgus macaques. CD388 comprises a multivalent conjugate of the influenza virus neuraminidase inhibitor zanamivir, linked to a CH1–Fc hybrid domain of human IgG1 engineered for extended half-life. CD388 improves the antiviral activity of zanamivir, demonstrating potent, universal activity across influenza A and B viruses, including high pathogenicity and neuraminidase inhibitor resistant strains, a low potential for resistance development and potent efficacy in lethal mouse infection models. These results suggest that CD388 has the potential for universal prevention of influenza A and B in healthy and high-risk populations."
Drug–Fc conjugate CD388 targets influenza virus neuraminidase and is broadly protective in mice (open access)
Fig. 1: Structure of CD388 and universal activity against influenza A and B in cell-based CPE and microneutralization assays.
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