The race to de­vel­op Covid-19 drugs and vac­cines is on — here’s what’s hap­pen­ing in the UK

Weeks away from the re­sults of on­go­ing US and Chi­na tri­als test­ing its ex­per­i­men­tal an­tivi­ral remde­sivir, Gilead is go­ing to tri­al the failed Ebo­la drug in a small group of coro­n­avirus pa­tients in Eng­land and Scot­land. The Unit­ed King­dom is al­so home to a range of oth­er ther­a­peu­tic ef­forts, as the pan­dem­ic rages on across the globe.

On Tues­day, Southamp­ton, UK-based start­up Synair­gen kicked off a mid-stage place­bo-con­trolled study test­ing its ex­per­i­men­tal drug, SNG001 — an in­haled for­mu­la­tion of in­ter­fer­on-be­ta-1a — that has pre­vi­ous­ly shown to be safe and ef­fec­tive in im­prov­ing lung func­tion in asth­ma pa­tients with a res­pi­ra­to­ry vi­ral in­fec­tion in a pair of Phase II tri­als.

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