Coronavirus: EU-funded project launches a clinical trial for coronavirus treatment in Italy

The Italian pharmaceutical regulatory agency, AIFA, has greenlighted a clinical trial for the use of Raloxifene in patients with mild symptoms caused by the coronavirus. In June 2020, the EU-funded consortium Exscalate4CoV using European supercomputing had announced that the registered generic drug used to treat osteoporosis could be an effective treatment for coronavirus. The European Commission supported the E4C Consortium with €3 million. This is one of many examples of how the EU’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 helps counter the coronavirus pandemic and develop new treatments. The clinical study should validate the safety and efficiency of Raloxifene in blocking the replication of the virus in cells, and thus hold up the progression of the disease. The study will take place at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases ‘L. Spallanzani’ in Rome, Italy and will also involve the Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan. In the initial phase, up to 450 participants in three separate treatment groups will be administered a 7-day treatment of Raloxifene capsules in a randomised sample. Exscalate4CoV, using a unique combination of high performance computing power and AI with biological processing, screened 400,000 molecules and specifically tested 7,000 molecules in vitro. You will find more information in the consortium press release.