Immune Regulation, announced that it has entered into a teaming agreement with DynPort Vaccine Company to jointly evaluate the potential of Immune Regulation’s drug product ILR201104 to treat COVID-19 related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in US clinical trials.

COVID-19 infection is associated with the recruitment of key blood cells to the lung, including neutrophils, which are required to fight the virus. However, in high-risk patients, the action of inflammatory molecules released by neutrophils may lead to overwhelming inflammation, otherwise known as ARDS, which may result in dangerously low levels of blood oxygen in patients who can become critically ill, possibly leading to death.

Immune Regulation’s drug candidate IRL201104 has been shown to quickly and markedly reduce the excessive infiltration of neutrophils in the lungs in a preclinical model of acute lung inflammation. A single dose of IRL201104 has been shown to reduce neutrophil infiltration quickly and maintain this effect for at least 24 hours. This may mean that a short course of treatment with IRL201104 would be able to provide a marked reduction in the numbers of infiltrating neutrophils into the lung, potentially reducing the overwhelming inflammatory response and restoring the levels of blood oxygen.