Cardiol Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing innovative therapies for inflammatory heart disease, received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its Investigational New Drug application to commence a Phase II/III, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial investigating the efficacy and safety of CardiolRx™, a pharmaceutically produced extra strength cannabidiol formulation, in 422 hospitalized COVID-19 patients with a prior history of, or risk factors for, cardiovascular disease (CVD). The trial will take place at major centers in the United States, where the prevalence of COVID-19 remains high. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Dennis McNamara, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, and the Director of the Heart Failure/Transplantation Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, is Chair of the Steering Committee for the trial.
Dr. McNamara commented: “As a Steering Committee, we are excited about the potential for this study to contribute valuable new information about the role of anti-inflammatory agents in the management of COVID-19. Now that approval from the FDA has been granted, we are anxious to get underway so that we can investigate the impact of CardiolRx in this very important disease process.”
Patients with COVID-19 primarily present with respiratory symptoms which can progress to bilateral pneumonia and serious pulmonary complications. It is now recognized that the impact of COVID-19 is not limited to the pulmonary system. Individuals with pre-existing CVD or who have risk factors for CVD (such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, abnormal serum lipids, or age greater than 64) are at significantly greater risk of developing serious disease from COVID-19 and experience greater morbidity. Moreover, such COVID-19 patients are at significant risk of developing cardiovascular complications (such as acute myocardial infarction, cardiac arrhythmias, myocarditis, stroke, and heart failure) during the course of their illness, and which are frequently fatal, with an estimated 30 – 40% of patients who die from COVID-19 doing so from cardiovascular complications. A strategy to prevent or limit the number or severity of these cardiovascular complications is likely to considerably improve outcomes from this disease.
Cardiol’s Phase II/III trial has been designed to assess the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of CardiolRx™ in preventing cardiovascular complications in hospitalized patients, with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 within the previous 24 hours, and who have pre-existing CVD and/or significant risk factors for CVD. The composite primary efficacy endpoint will be the difference between the active and placebo groups in the percentage of patients who develop, during the first twenty-eight days following randomization and first dose of study medication, a composite endpoint consisting of one or more of several common outcomes in this patient population, including all-cause mortality, requirement for ICU admission and/or ventilatory support, as well as cardiovascular complications, including the development of heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, myocarditis, stroke, or new sustained or symptomatic arrhythmia.
The rationale for using cannabidiol to treat patients with COVID-19 is based on extensive pre-clinical investigations by Cardiol and others in models of cardiovascular inflammation which have demonstrated that CBD has impressive anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic activity, as well as anti-ischemic, and anti-arrhythmic action, and that it improves myocardial function in models of heart failure. In pre-clinical models of cardiac injury, cannabidiol was shown to be cardio-protective by reducing cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis, and the production of certain re-modelling markers, such as cardiac B-type Natriuretic Peptide (BNP), which is typically elevated in patients with heart failure. These data were accepted for presentation at the American College of Cardiology’s 69th Annual Scientific Session held virtually on March 28 – 30, 2020.
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