Clinical trials of the Hungarian-developed therapy can be started in Hungary; thanks to which the so-called cytokine storm, referring to the excessive immune response caused by the coronavirus, along with severe organ damages can be prevented. The infusion treatment was developed by a Hungarian biologist immunologist, Lajos Baranyi; according to whom, the treatments with the new therapy can start by the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
Besides global competition to find the coronavirus vaccine, there is a great focus on how to treat organ damages caused by the pandemic.
While 80-85% of people overcome the new type of coronavirus asymptomatically or with milder symptoms, a smaller proportion experience severe bilateral pneumonia or other organ damage, and the virus does not cause this, but by an abnormally strong immune response, called a cytokine storm, primarily in the case of elderly and chronic patients.
In order to prevent such organ damages, the infusion therapy developed by Lajos Baranyi, a Hungarian biologist-immunologist living in America, is outstanding.
As the Hungarian news portal Növekedés reports, the essence of the process is that cytokines, which also play a role in transmitting information and regulating the immune response, prevent the normal functioning of the immune system during a self-stimulating, irreversible process.
The Hungarian-born researcher developed the therapy in the United States and proved to be clearly effective in laboratory and animal experiments. It was also tested using a method previously developed in collaboration with Hungarian researchers and recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to model a cytokine storm in the human body under artificial conditions. The treatment was successful in this project as well.
Since then, Lajos Baranyi has launched the patent procedure for therapy in the United States and Germany and began negotiations with the Hungarian Medicines Authority in order to conduct clinical trials in Hungary.
As a result of preliminary negotiations, preclinical and clinical trials are expected to begin within a few weeks in Szeged and Budapest.
The process will start with animal testing – as in the case of other human drug trials – and will be tested in healthy volunteers after making sure that it has no toxic effects. If this will be successful, the treatment can be used on infected patients as well.
This also means that – if the treatment proves successful – Hungarian patients will be the first in the world to have access to the life-saving treatment.
The researcher also added that in the third phase of clinical trials, efficacy will already be tested on thousands, expected across Europe.
Presumably, treatments could begin with the new therapy by the end of this year or early next year. This would also be an important step forward in vaccine development, because whoever is vaccinated with any of the experimental vaccines will be able to be sure that there is an available and effective cure for a possible disease.
Source: Daily News Hungary
