Wat zijn eigenlijk de PE en SE van de critical groep van Relief? Bij Actemra / Roche was de patiënt mortality slechts SE en niet PE!
September 21, 2020 Lukas Hässig
The Covid crisis is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry. The Swiss Multi Roche hits the media drum accordingly.
But it is not the people of Basel who are ahead of the curve when it comes to virus therapy. It's a small company in Geneva called Relief Therapeutics.
Their active ingredient, which is based on substances from nature and is already approved for other applications, shows amazing results in far advanced tests.
The substance is applied in exactly the right place so that the virus disease cannot spread rapidly in the body. A so-called receptor is blocked by the drug.
Today the company, whose share price has soared, announces a worldwide cooperation.
Together with a partner, Relief wants to market and sell its active ingredient, Aviptadil, globally under the RLF-100 brand. The two companies want to ramp up production for this.
While Relief is taking off with an apparently effective corona therapy, the big Swiss pharmaceutical multinationals attract attention with announcements that quickly turn out to be bankrupt.
In particular Roche, next to Nestlé the most successful Swiss company, made headlines last week with a new corona drug.
“Is that the breakthrough?” Asked the look, and headlined: “Corona drug from Roche seems to be working”.
"The already approved Roche drug Actemra / RoActemra (tocilizumab) achieved the desired effect in patients with corona-related pneumonia in the phase III EMPACTA study," wrote the newspaper.
In fact, the situation is quite different. In fact the opposite.
The Roche drug showed little effect when used against Covid-19, as the disease of the corona virus Cov Sars-2 is called.
Great headlines, although goals are missed (Roche)
"COVACTA trial did not meet its primary endpoint of improved clinical status in patients with COVID-19 associated pneumonia, or the key secondary endpoint of reduced patient mortality", Roche had to admit 2 months ago.
In addition, there are patients who suffered from severe side effects in a study. These can lead to the death of lung patients.
"There are data that pulmonary dysfunction can increase the incidence of infections during Actemra therapy," Roche had to report in spring 2018 together with Swissmedic, the reporting office for therapies.
Open benefits with high risks (Roche, Swissmedic)
He continued: "There have also been reports of interstitial lung diseases (including pneumonitis and pulmonary fibrosis) after Actemra was launched, some of which were fatal."
The Roche drug can lead to patient death when used against Covid-19. Even so, it received the highest praise last week after Roche hit the media drum.
Conversely, the promising drug of the small relief, which has come a long way in US tests, has been primarily a tip for stock market hunters.