SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SignPath Pharma today confirmed its commitment to developing a treatment for severe viral infections utilizing Lipocurc™, its patented intravenous formulation of liposomal curcumin.
SignPath’s Lipocurc™ is an intravenous treatment, proven to be safe in patients, that profoundly suppresses the multiple pro-inflammatory cytokines that cause severe lung damage (ARDS) in patients with COVID-19 infection caused by coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2.
Patients with severe COVID-19 infection can develop fatal lung damage from a cytokine storm, a marked increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines such as Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha, Interleukin-1 beta, Interleukin-6, Interleukin-8 and other cytokines.
Unlike other treatments now being studied to treat COVID-19 (which suppress only Interleukin-6), Lipocurc™ has the major advantage of not only safely suppressing interleukin-6 by 83%, it also profoundly suppresses two other extremely important proinflammatory cytokines associated with cytokine storm and fatal lung damage (TNF-alpha by 77% and IL-1 beta by 85%) as well as suppressing RANTES (CCL5), IL-8, MCP-1 and MIP-alpha.
Lipocurc’s proprietary formulation technology allows us to safely give liposomal curcumin intravenously in extremely high doses without cardiotoxicity, so we achieve blood levels 2,000 times greater than oral curcumin (which has extremely poor oral absorption.)
Unlike other potential treatments for cytokine storm, Lipocurc™ has been found to be without serious side effects in extensive animal studies and in human patients.
Even at very high doses, intravenous Lipocurc™ is well-tolerated and has shown no heart, lung, liver of kidney toxicity in two phase 1, escalating-dose, trials in 70 human patients.
SignPath is currently exploring opportunities to expedite the opportunities for utilizing Lipocurc™ in clinical settings for the treatment of patients afflicted with COVID-19 and other viral diseases which cause harm via the cytokine storm mechanism.
SignPath Pharma, Inc. is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of heart safe drugs for the treatment of serious diseases. The first such drug, LipoCurc™, has successfully completed Phase I human clinical trials. Further clinical trials with LipoCurc™ and SPP4040, Signpath’s proprietary adjuvant for mitigating cardio-toxicity, are planned for 2020.