CECAD PI and Alexander von Humboldt Professor Henning Walczak started together with colleagues from the Medical University of Vienna and the biotech company Apogenix a phase II clinical trial with the immunotherapeutic agent Asunercept, a Fas ligand inhibitor.

Originally, the Fas ligand inhibitor was developed for cancer therapy. In the framework of the Austrian CoronaVirus Adaptive Clinical Trial (ACOVACT)  patients with severe to critical COVID-19 disease are being treated with the immunotherapeutic agent.

ACOVACT is an open-label, MedUni Vienna sponsored, scientifically initiated, randomized, controlled, multi-centre clinical trial and compares different treatments for COVID-19. In conjunction with results published by other researchers, Walczak and colleagues concluded that tissue destruction and lung failure in patients with severe COVID-19 may actually be the result of the overactivity of so-called death ligands, rather than the virus infection itself.

Death ligands are proteins that our own body cells normally produce in the course of immune defence. The immunotherapeutic agent intercepts the death ligand known as Fas ligand or CD95 ligand. It appears that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces an overreaction of our immune system, resulting in overproduction of Fas ligand. This killer protein can then kill healthy, uninfected cells in the lungs of COVID-19 patients, thus causing lung damage, Walczak explained. The concept of preventing cell death in the treatment of COVID-19 is innovative and the scientists are excited about the outcome of this clinical trial.

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