NIH Enrolls First Patients in COVID-19 Trial of Rigel’s Fostamatinib

The NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has enrolled the first participants in a multicenter phase 2 trial evaluating Rigel Pharmaceuticals’ oral spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor fostamatinib as a COVID-19 treatment.

The trial is testing the drug — which is already approved in the U.S. and Europe for treating adults with an autoimmune disorder, chronic immune thrombocytopenia — in approximately 60 severe COVID-19 patients requiring supplemental oxygen or noninvasive ventilation. While the study is primarily assessing fostamatinib’s safety compared to placebo, it is also looking at early efficacy and clinically relevant measures of disease progression, Rigel said.

The trial, which is being conducted with support from Virginia-based Inova Health System, launched in September and should yield results about a month after it enrolls its final patient, potentially in December, NHLBI’s Clinical Director Richard Childs said.

The drug is also being studied as a potential COVID-19 pneumonia treatment by the Imperial College London in another phase 2 trial (DID, Sept. 18). — James Miessler