CureMatch
×
  • Physicians
    • Patients
  • About Us
  • News
    • CureMatch News
    • Validation and Research
    • Events & Conferences
  • Contact

64 FDA-Approved Drugs Identified as Potential Treatments for COVID-19

64 FDA-Approved Drugs Identified as Potential Treatments for COVID-19
PressPress Releases

Scientists from CureMatch and UCSD use pharmacophore-based drug design and a molecular docking technique to identify candidate protease inhibitors for COVID-19

SAN DIEGO, CA – April 15, 2020 – CureMatch, a digital health company focusing on personalized medicine and combination therapies, today announced that Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder, Dr. Igor Tsigelny, along with Dr. Valentina Kouznesova of the San Diego Supercomputer Center and Moores Cancer Center and David Huang of the San Diego Supercomputer Center and CureMatch have jointly published a study that identifies 64 FDA-approved drugs as potential COVID-19 protease inhibitors.  Included in their list are three drugs that have already shown some benefit for COVID-19 treatment, making research into the COVID-19 protease a promising path to rapidly finding drug candidates to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

“The need is critical to find drugs that can be immediately used to treat patients suffering from COVID-19 worldwide,” said Dr. Tsigelny.  “Our research has centered around drugs that are already FDA-approved and effective in treating other viruses in order to find compounds that will not only be useful in fighting COVID-19 but also safe with minimal side effects.”

Begun in March of 2020, the study used the recently published structure of the COVID-19 protease[1] to develop a pharmacophore model of the protease inhibitor-binding pocket. The COVID-19 protease is a key viral protein related to the production of other viral proteins that harm the patient. The drug-candidates can be thought of like a key fitting into a lock. The COVID-19 protease inhibitor is the key and the binding pocket is the lock. An effective protease inhibitor will fit into the binding pocket, also called “docking” and block the COVID-19 protease from its function. Next, the team conducted data mining of the conformational database of FDA-approved drugs. Through this search, the team found 64 compounds that fit the binding pocket’s shape.

They then tested these 64 drugs to see which ones fit into the binding site with the lowest effort or ‘free energy’.  They listed each compound organized by lowest to highest free energy value. Using the same model and process as with the 64 compounds, they also tested randomly selected compounds. The results show that the 64 chosen compounds perform better than the randomly selected compounds in terms of free energy, meaning they will likely perform better as a protease inhibitor for COVID-19 than the randomly selected compounds.  Unique to the methodology of this study is the combination of the pharmacophore-based drug design and molecular docking of the possible conforming drugs.

A major benefit of this research is that all proposed drug candidates are already approved by the FDA, meaning that all 64 drugs chosen for this study have been tested for safety and proper dosage for patients.  This speeds testing and development time and can potentially result in drugs approved much faster to fight COVID-19.  The next step in this research will involve using a much larger database of FDA-approved drugs and available natural compounds to run the same search using the same pharmacophore/docking approach. The goal would be to run the same search strategy with the NCI database of around 250,000 compounds.

A full description of the study and results achieved can be found here.  Research teams interested in exploring this study further should reach out to Dr. Tsigelny at itsigelny@curematch.com or itsigeln@ucsd.edu.

————————————————————-

[1] Zhang L, Lin D, Sun X, Curth U, Drosten C, Sauerhering L, Becker S, Rox K, Hilgenfeld R. Crystal structure of SARS

-CoV -2 main protease provides a basis for design of improved alpha – ketoamide inhibitors. Science. 2020; 2020: pii: eabb3405.  [Epub ahead of print] 2020 Mar . doi: 10.1126/science.abb3405.

 

Share

  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • Print

Receive CureMatch News

Sign up for personalized oncology information and resources.
* = required field

Recent News & Resources

  • CureMatch Appoints Visionary Leader, Ally Perlina, as Chief Science Officer

    Leader brings two decades of industry experience in precision medicine, pharmaceutical and translational science to...

  • Biomarkers Aren’t Consistently Used to Select Participants for Immunotherapy Trials

    Only a minority of clinical trials evaluating immunotherapeutic agents in 2019 used a biomarker to...

  • Real-world Data from a Molecular Tumor Board Demonstrates Improved Outcomes with a Precision N-of-One Strategy

    Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has allowed the identification of novel potential targets for patients with cancer....

  • Servier and CureMatch® Launch Their Self-Certified CE-Marked Clinical Decision Support Software, Bionov™

    PARIS and SAN DIEGO, Oct. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — WeHealth™ Digital Medicine, Servier Group’s e-health business unit, and CureMatch®, a...

  • How Precision Medicine Can Help You

    Precision medicine is revolutionizing cancer care. Dr. Razelle Kurzrock highlights how personalized treatments improve patient...

  • 64 FDA-Approved Drugs Identified as Potential Treatments for COVID-19

    Scientists from CureMatch and UCSD use pharmacophore-based drug design and a molecular docking technique to...

  • The Crossroads of Precision Medicine and Therapeutic Decision-Making: Use of an Analytical Computational Platform to Predict Response to Cancer Treatments

    Oncology is currently the largest area of clinical health expenditures for prescription drugs in the...

Validation

  • Real-world Data from a Molecular Tumor Board Demonstrates Improved Outcomes with a Precision N-of-One Strategy

    Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has allowed the identification of novel potential targets for...

  • The Crossroads of Precision Medicine and Therapeutic Decision-Making: Use of an Analytical Computational Platform to Predict Response to Cancer Treatments

    Oncology is currently the largest area of clinical health expenditures for prescription...

  • CureMatch at WIN Symposium 2018 Winning the War against Cancer with Precision Oncology

    SAN DIEGO, CA – June 22, 2018 – CureMatch, Inc. offers results...

  • Personalized Drug Combinations Can Lead to Better Results for Cancer Patients

    A featured article in The Scientist magazine highlights CureMatch co-founder Dr. Razelle...

Archives

  • December 2020 (2)
  • October 2020 (3)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • November 2019 (2)
  • September 2019 (1)
  • August 2019 (1)
  • July 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (2)
  • September 2018 (1)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • July 2018 (1)
  • June 2018 (5)
  • May 2018 (1)
  • April 2018 (4)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • February 2018 (3)
  • January 2018 (4)
  • December 2017 (3)
  • November 2017 (1)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • September 2017 (3)
  • August 2017 (4)
  • June 2017 (6)
  • May 2017 (9)
  • April 2017 (11)
  • March 2017 (8)
  • February 2017 (3)
  • January 2017 (5)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (5)
  • August 2016 (2)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (1)

logo

+1 (858) 859-2873

FAX: +1 (858) 430-5813

Quick Links

  • Physicians
  • About CureMatch
  • News and Latest Posts
    • CureMatch News
    • Validation and Case Studies
    • Events and Conferences
  • Contact Us
  • FAQ

Latest News and Results

  • CureMatch Appoints Visionary Leader, Ally Perlina, as Chief Science Officer Dec 15

    Leader brings two decades of industry experience in precision medicine, pharmaceutical and translational science to...

  • Biomarkers Aren’t Consistently Used to Select Participants for Immunotherapy Trials Dec 13

    Only a minority of clinical trials evaluating immunotherapeutic agents in 2019 used a biomarker to...

  • Real-world Data from a Molecular Tumor Board Demonstrates Improved Outcomes with a Precision N-of-One Strategy Oct 19

    Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has allowed the identification of novel potential targets for patients with cancer....

© 2021 CureMatch, Inc. CureMatch is a registered trademark.
FAQ | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | HIPAA Notice

We’d like to send you a CureMatch Sample Analysis

 

Sample Analysis Download Form

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

 

We value and respect your privacy and will not publish, share, or sell your contact information.

View Privacy Policy

Some pages of this website are intended for healthcare professionals

This webpage is strictly reserved for healthcare professionals. Please confirm that you are a healthcare professional.

Otherwise, you will be redirected to the institutional part of this website.

Thank you for your understanding.

I am a healthcare professionalI am not a healthcare professional

Get ready to utilize the latest genomics data in your practice

Rank the most promising systemic therapies for your patients

Do you need to filter out those therapies with poor outcomes

Sort through 4.5 million expertly curated combinations of drugs

Compute your own drug choices alongside CureMatch data