Covid-19 roundup: Pieris to in­ves­ti­gate treat­ment of long Covid with Bavar­i­an grant mon­ey; A roller­coast­er year ends in FDA OK for re­pur­posed Covid drug

An­oth­er res­pi­ra­to­ry drug is be­ing de­vel­oped for the treat­ment of Covid-19.

Pieris Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals an­nounced Fri­day that the in­haled CT­GF in­hibitor PRS-220, orig­i­nal­ly be­ing de­vel­oped for the treat­ment of id­io­path­ic pul­monary fi­bro­sis, re­ceived a grant from the Bavar­i­an Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs to de­vel­op that same agent to treat “long Covid.”

CT­GF is a pro­tein in the ex­tra­cel­lu­lar ma­trix, and a dri­ver of fi­brot­ic tis­sue re­mod­el­ing that comes from the wound heal­ing process. IPF af­fects more than 3 mil­lion peo­ple in the world, and 130,000 in the US, Pieris said in its re­lease. The av­er­age sur­vival time for a pa­tient di­ag­nosed with IBF is two to five years.

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