Could This Drug Stop COVID’s Sabotage of Your Immune System?
One way the coronavirus may kill people is by provoking an overreaction by the immune system. Maybe, just maybe, the arthritis drug tocilizumab can calm the immune-response storm.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty
A South San Francisco biotech company is trying to determine whether an arthritis drug could help treat COVID-19. It’s way too soon to say for sure, but there are signs the firm might be onto something.
Extra emphasis on might. There’s still a lot we don’t know about SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes. We know even less about effective treatments.
On March 23, Genentech got the Food and Drug Administration’s approval to begin testing the drug tocilizumab on COVID-19 patients. The company said it administered its first treatments on April 3. In all, Genentech plans to treat 330 patients at 55 clinics all over the world, including 15 in the United States.
