China Kintor's COVID drug candidate cuts hospital, death risk in trial

Kintor Pharmaceutical

06/04/2022 04:17

BEIJING, April 6 (Reuters) - China's Kintor Pharmaceutical
 9939.HK  said on Wednesday its potential COVID-19 treatment
proxalutamide effectively reduced the risk of hospitalization
and death in a clinical trial involving outpatients with mild to
moderate symptoms. 
    The results came from a multi-national clinical trial with
over 700 subjects across the world, mostly from the United
States, recruited during April-December, 2021, who were given
either proxalutamide or a placebo, the company said in a filing.
    It remains unclear how many patients contracted the Omicron
variant.
    Among trial subjects with more than seven days of treatment,
six in the placebo group were hospitalized, including one death,
versus no death or hospitalisation in the group taking
proxalutamide, according to the filing, without providing
detailed data. 
    For all subjects who took at least one day of treatment,
Proxalutamide reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by
50%. For subjects with more than one day of treatment, the risk
was reduced by 71%, Kintor said. 
    China has approved Pfizer Inc's Paxlovid and Brii
Biosciences Ltd's antibody-based medicine for mild and moderate
COVID patients with high risk of progressing to severe
conditions. 
    Kintor chairman Tong Youzhi said a separate trial of the
treatment for use in severe cases is facing some challenges, as
the number of such cases remain low in China, and the trial in
Ukraine has been affected by the ongoing war with Russia.
    Kintor is arranging sites in countries including
southeastern Asia nations to push forward the trial, he said.

 (Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo)
 ((hongkong.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com; （8610）6627-1277;
Reuters Messaging: roxanne.liu@thomsonreuters.com))