CALIFORNIA BIO-PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY CLAIMS TO HAVE FOUND A CURE FOR CORONAVIRUS

Mankind is facing perhaps the greatest crisis since World War II. The coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives as we know it, leaving scars on the collective psyche and sentiment of the public, paralyzing much of the world’s economic flows given the globalization of the world economy. In addition to all this, the coronavirus leaves another mark, which is bigger than all the others, and that is the huge number of deaths. Up until May 05, 2020, 2:15 p.m., the death toll, according to the USA Johns Hopkins University special website, is 315,496. Despite the enormity of the number itself, the death toll is still rising on a daily basis.

Under such conditions, while it is publically well known that many countries have declared a state of emergency in their territories, a huge part of the global human energy is focused on finding a drug that could create immunity of the human body to the coronavirus, or destroy the nested coronavirus in an infected person. All of humanity has simply fixed their eyes on the attempts to find a solution that would prevent the pandemic from spreading further or could cure the infected. In that context, on May 15, 2020, the name ”Sorrento Therapeutics” found itself in the spotlight overnight. Besides this, the company is in the spotlight of many investors, thus the price of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange rose by as much as 158%. But what is it that has attracted so much public attention, and thus so much capital? Before we get to the main point, that is, what is it that caused so much fuss among the public, we must first get to know “Sorento Therapeutics” better.

Sorento Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company founded in 2006 in San Diego, California. Its activity is to develop therapies for the treatment of cancer, immune, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. The company carries out its activities through two companies, Sorento Therapeutics and Scylex. Sorento Therapeutics has partnered with SmartFarm Therapeutics to develop a vaccine with a genetically-encoded antibody to protect against COVID-19. The company also has a research test agreement with the medical department of the University of Texas, located in Galveston, for preclinical testing of candidates for therapeutic products for COVID-19 produced by Sorrento. The company is also working with “Cellularity” to initiate a clinical study, involving up to 86 patients infected with COVID-19.

It is a preclinical test, which is still in the experimental phase. Sorrento claims that the antibody that the company developed under the name “STI-1499″ showed 100% prevention of the COVID-19 virus. The STI-1499 antibody protects the human body from coronavirus and removes the virus from the human body within 4 days. The antibody showed a 100% effect on experiments conducted by Sorento in removing the COVID-19 virus from the healthy cells. “We want to emphasize that there is a cure. There is a solution that works 100%. If you have a neutralizing antibody in your body, you will not need the social distance. You can open up to the society without fear,” said Dr. Henry Ji, founder and CEO of Sorrento. The full results of the preclinical experiment will soon be published in a journal where it will be evaluated by the professional public. The company said last week that it plans to develop an “antibody cocktail” treatment for high-risk patients or those with COVID-19 in partnership with Mount Sinai Health System. In this case, the cocktail will be protected by the trademark (COVI-SHIELDTM), while the STI-1499 antibody will be trademarked (COVI-GUARDTM). Sorento is studying plasma collected from 15,000 people tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies by clinicians in Mount Sinai.

As for how this antibody works, it actually binds to the S1 component of the Spike protein in SARS-CoV-2 and completely blocks its interaction with the ACE2 receptor. It is important to note that such results have been shown in the presence of a very small dose of STI-1499, and it is important to note that the ‘cocktail’ that Sorrento is preparing could prevent possible mutations of the virus that could occur.

Given that such treatment has not yet been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, Sorrento plans to request a priority evaluation and expedited review by regulators in order to determine the best direction to make every potential treatment available as soon as possible. Given its production capacity, Sorrento expects to be able to produce up to 200,000 doses per month, and the company plans to produce 1,000,000 doses at risk while awaiting approval from the Federal Food and Drug Administration for any of the proposed STI-1499 products. The company is also seeking potential support from the government and pharmaceutical partners in order to further increase production capacity.

Besides Sorrento, other companies or organizations are testing potential drugs for COVID-19. More than 150 different drugs are being studied around the world. Most are already existing drugs that are being tested against the virus. One example is Veterans affairs, which claims that Degarelix (also known as Firmagon) has shown potential in tests performed on about 200 hospitalized veterans infected with the virus. Degarelix is ​​often used to treat more severe cases of prostate cancer by suppressing the body’s production of male hormones. Researchers working on coronavirus treatments have found that the same hormones can trigger the production of certain proteins that COVID-19 uses to enter lung tissue and cause serious health problems.

The World Health Organization’s Initiative “Solidarity” is a program for clinical trials of potential treatments for COVID-19. In this way, the different treatments are expected to be compared, as well as the addition of new treatments for testing in parallel with the discovery of new facts about COVID-19. Other potential drugs mentioned by the World Health Organization are Remedesivir, which was previously tested as a treatment for Ebola; Lopinavir/Ritonavir which is a licensed HIV treatment; Interferon-beta-1a, used as a treatment for multiple sclerosis; and Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine, which are closely related and used as a treatment for malaria and rheumatic diseases.

Finally, all of these attempts should inspire optimism in us, but we may need to be a little skeptical, as treatment needs to be successfully proven in cases of coronavirus. In any case, with each step taken, we are closer to discovering a cure and preventing the further accumulation of the negative devastating effects that the coronavirus pandemic leaves behind.