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Open Orphan says Covid challenge study provides 'invaluable insights'

Published: 07:34 02 Feb 2022 GMT

2022-02-02-07-41-19-25c56e1718e3057015e62a357cd1bf25

Open Orphan PLC (AIM:ORPH, OTC:OPORF) chairman Cathal Friel said a new Covid human characterisation study could be ‘instrumental’ in accelerating the development of future therapeutics.

“New variants, such as Omicron, often mean that vaccines and antivirals have to be quickly re-evaluated to ensure effectiveness,” he said following the release of results from the ground-breaking analysis.

“Human challenge studies could prove to be the fastest way to compare old and new vaccines and therapies."

Clinicians from Open Orphan’s hVIVO research arm assessed 36 young people aged 18-29 who were administered the original SARS-CoV-2 strain.

The read-out provided some fascinating insights. In all, 18 of the volunteers became infected with the viral load peaking at five days post-inoculation.

Interestingly, there appeared to be no correlation between viral load and symptoms, which were mild to moderate and cold-like.

A total of 13 of the infected group suffered anosmia, the loss or change of smell that has become characteristic of the condition.

In terms of virus detection, the time to early symptoms was 42 hours. While Covid was first picked up in the throat, ‘significantly greater’ levels were found in the nose.

Finally, high levels of viable, infectious virus were seen for nine days post-inoculation, and up to a maximum of 12 days.

Dr Andrew Catchpole, co-investigator on the study and chief scientific officer of hVIVO, said SARS-CoV-2 characterisation study provided ‘invaluable insights’ into the progression of Covid infection in healthy young adults.

“Importantly the study demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies are safe and well-tolerated by the volunteers with no serious symptoms and no serious adverse events,” he added. 

“The study's results have provided useful insights which could be used to inform public health decisions on COVID-19 symptoms and virus detection going forward, including isolation periods for infectious individuals, the use of LFTs [lateral flow tests], and establishing the human challenge platform to investigate further aspects of COVID-19.”

The study was carried out in partnership with Imperial College London, the Vaccine Taskforce and Department of Health and Social Care, and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.

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