Texas A&M Researchers Are Developing New Drug To Fight COVID-19

Researchers at Texas A&M are developing a new drug to treat COVID-19.

Professor and biological chemist Dr. Wenshe Ray Liu and his team of 20 scientists have been working on a new drug compound called MPI8 since January 2020, KTRK reported.

In lab tests, MPI8 was shown to break down enzymes in the virus, which stops COVID-19 from multiplying. The lab tests have been so successful that Liu and his team are now working with California-based company Sorrento Therapeutics to turn MPI8 into a pill that humans can take.

“If it can be approved clinically, this will be a game changer,” he told Texas A&M Today.

Currently, remdesivir is the only FDA approved medication to treat COVID. Liu is optimistic that MPI8 can be used with remdesivir to prevent people from dying of the virus.

"I would think this small molecule will really save a lot of patient lives, especially those people who show really severe symptoms," he told KTRK.

Sorrento Therapeutics hopes to complete pre-clinical trials of MPI8 by the end of the year and seek FDA approval to begin clinical trials on humans in early 2022. MPI8 could be available as a treatment as early as the summer of 2022.