(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) Safety data taken by a hospital indicates that “16 of 19 patients (84%) with COVID-19 respiratory failure treated with ZYESAMI (aviptadil) have survived the ICU,” according to an NRx Pharmaceuticals press release.
Treatment with ZYESAMI was tried during the Omicron surge, and the 84% success rate applied to those patients who had received the drug before Dec. 31, 2021 and were “still alive” by Jan. 22, 2022.
The pharmaceutical company reported that the patients were treated under the Right to Try Act, which was passed into law in May of 2018 to assist patients “who are unable to participate in a clinical trial to access certain unapproved treatments.”
NRx Pharmaceuticals warned that “patients treated under the Right to Try law do not involve a control group and are not part of a research study designed to test efficacy.”
Nevertheless, the company has applied to FDA for an Emergency Use Authorization. and the Epoch Times reported that at least one man has been denied recourse to the drug to treat his severe COVID case.
Arizona businessman Stephen Judge “repeatedly asked Banner Ironwood Medical Center in Queen Creek, Arizona to allow alternative treatments, including ZYESAMI,” the Times reported.
The hospital cited its “standard protocols” in its refusal, and Judge died earlier this month.
NRx Pharmaceuticals is also in the midst of developing an anti-Omicron vaccine, and has indicated some level of success.
The “BriLife vaccine may produce effective levels of neutralizing antibody against the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” NRx reported on Jan. 31.
The BriLife vaccine is a “a live, viral vector vaccine” that has the potential to “evolve to address future Variants of Concern (VOCs).”
Nasdaq.com reported in early January that NRx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: NRXP) is one of three “COVID stocks that could double in 2022.”
Although the company dropped “80.4% of its value over 2021,” the fact that it has “filed a new Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) request for Zyesami with the FDA” means it has a “healthy commercial opportunity.”
