U of M expanding research of experimental treatment that saved COVID-19 patients

A hormone treatment used in two last-gasp emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic has shown enough promise that researchers are looking for new ways to administer it to patients with severe respiratory disorders — even while it remains experimental.
University of Minnesota researchers announced this week that they are exploring an aerosolized version of the liquid treatment that could be administered more easily and to more patients than the fluids that were dispensed down the breathing tubes of Bob Schlicht and Tim White. The two Minnesotans voluntarily received the experimental medication in summer 2020 after COVID left them struggling to breathe.
The researchers still need to convince the Food and Drug Administration that it is an effective treatment for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a severe lung disorder caused by COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. But they are confident enough that they have created a startup company, Herald Therapeutics, and the university has obtained patents in the United States, Canada, China, India, and Mexico and is seeking one from the European Union.
The liquid version is given to patients who need mechanical ventilators to keep their lungs functioning, but an inhaled version could be given earlier on, before patients reach such advances stages of lung damage, said Dr. David Ingbar, a co-leader of the U research. Earlier use could improve outcomes from a condition that has been a problem long before the pandemic, he added.
“The public didn’t really know about [ARDS], but it affects about 200,000 people per year in the U.S.,” he said. “And at a 40 percent death rate, that means it kills about 80,000 people per year.”
Ingbar and Dr. Timothy Rich have been studying for years the therapeutic potential of the hormone, called T3, that is produced in the thyroid gland. Studies of patients who died during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic showed that they had depleted T3 levels. The doctors theorized that supplemental infusions could reduce harmful swelling and fluid buildup in the lungs, and launched their first clinical trial in 2019.
The coincidental emergence of COVID-19 helped and hindered the research. Supply problems during the pandemic limited their ability to provide the supplement, slowing the rollout of the trial, Ingbar said. On the other hand, the pandemic created a new pool of patients in respiratory distress to enroll, including Schlicht and White.
Schlicht grew severely ill during a road trip back from Florida, and because of pandemic restrictions his wife had to drop him off outside their local clinic in Grand Rapids. Schlicht, the first known COVID-19 case in Itasca County, deteriorated so rapidly that he was placed in a medicated coma and on a ventilator to keep his lungs functioning. He was rushed to St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, where Rich was on staff and recommended the hormone therapy. Schlicht’s wife made the decision.
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