Specialty life sciences company Revive Therapeutics has signed a research agreement with University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to study Bucillamine as a potential treatment for severe Covid-19.

The deal will support research at UCSF Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division professor Dr John Fahy’s laboratory to evaluate the drug’s efficacy in pre-clinical Covid-19 models.

It will also support the design of protocols to examine Bucillamine in human trials.

Revive Therapeutics CEO Michael Frank said: “Revive is focused on proving Bucillamine’s clinical utility for all forms of Covid-19.

“Evaluating Bucillamine for severe Covid-19 along with our dedication in completing our ongoing Phase III clinical study for mild-to-moderate Covid-19, which has grown from 14 clinical sites to now 26 participating sites in 10 US states, will position Bucillamine as a potential oral treatment option for mild-moderate to severe Covid-19.”

A recent by Dr Fahyfound that thiol-based drugs such as Bucillamine mitigate the binding of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to its receptor.

It also found that these drugs reduce the entry efficiency of SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped virus and prevent SARS-CoV-2 live virus infection.

These findings have shown vulnerability of the Covid-19 virus to thiol-based drugs and allow testing of thiol-based drugs, including Bucillamine, as potential Covid-19 treatments.

The company previously initiated a Phase III study to assess the safety and efficacy of Bucillamine in patients suffering from mild to moderate Covid-19. Enrolment for this US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) trial is expected to close in the second half of this year.

As of March this year, the study did not reveal any serious adverse events or safety concerns with the drug.