New Corona drug from German start-up being tested on humans

The drug from Munich start-up Eisbach Bio enters the first clinical trial. Eight million euros in funding from the German government.

Hope for a drug against corona: the start-up Eisbach Bio from Martinsried near Munich has developed its own drug against Covid disease and is now taking it to its first clinical trials. It has already been tested on animals. "We can now start the clinical phase and tests on humans," says co-founder and CEO Adrian Schomburg to the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is providing eight million euros in funding, which will cover 80 percent of the development costs. Eisbach Bio is developing tablets that can be taken orally and are therefore easy to manufacture, transport and administer.

The drug is entering clinical phase 1, in which side effects are observed in healthy people. Only if there are no side effects does it enter the second phase, in which the drug is tested for efficacy in patients. If all goes well, production could start as early as the middle of next year. So far, there are only two drugs recommended by the WHO against Sars-CoV-2, both of which are very expensive. Eisbach Bio aims to be more cost-effective, with a one-week treatment costing less than 100 euros.

Schomburg founded the start-up two years ago together with Andreas Ladurner, a professor of biochemistry from Munich. Together, they actually wanted to develop a drug against cancer. They discovered that gene sequences of the coronavirus are similar to a protein that their drug also combats. That is why they are currently researching a drug against the coronavirus.