ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Advaita Bioinformatics, the leader in interpretation of high-throughput biomedical data, announced today that they identified a generic drug with clinical efficacy against COVID-19. This was confirmed in a clinical study at Henry Ford Health System (HFHS).

The drug was identified using Advaita’s advanced AI platform, iPathwayGuide, which showed the necessity of modulating the immune response to SARS-CoV-2. An important finding is that drugs in the same class may not have similar effects. For instance, methylprednisolone was predicted to revert COVID-19-induced changes, while other steroids, such as prednisone or dexamethasone, were not. It was also found that several drugs currently being investigated would not revert many changes induced by this disease.

An independent clinical study undertaken at HFHS and led by Dr. Mayur S. Ramesh, has shown in a cohort of over 200 patients that a short course of methylprednisolone was able to significantly reduce transfers to ICU, requirements for ventilation, as well as mortality. A peer-reviewed paper has been submitted to a leading journal.

Said Advaita CEO Sorin Draghici, PhD: “iPathwayGuide was able to identify a few drugs that would be effective, very quickly after data became available several weeks ago. We were surprised to see that several drugs proposed before were not expected do as well as the ones we identified. The fantastic work done at Henry Ford by Dr. Ramesh and his colleagues proved that our approach has clinical value. Hearing that the drug we identified actually saved lives was extremely rewarding. We have a few other drugs that are predicted to be effective and we are seeking additional clinical partners to demonstrate their validity.”

The leader of the HFHS clinical study, Dr. Ramesh said: “We were very excited to see the very positive clinical results provided by methylprednisolone in the Henry Ford Health System. We have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of deaths after we started treating patients with this drug. We are looking forward to exploring the clinical efficacy of the other repurposed drugs identified by Advaita’s drug repurposing platform”. Dr. Marcus Zervos, Chief of Infectious Diseases at HFHS, added “Drugs allowing us to avoid cytokine storms and hyper-inflammation will be useful in future pandemics, regardless of the pathogen.”

To learn more, visit: https://advaitabio.com/news/covid19-analysis.

About Advaita Bioinformatics (www.AdvaitaBio.com):

AdvaitaBio provides industry-leading bioinformatics platforms to over 18,000 users worldwide: iPathwayGuide, for pathway analysis of genes and proteins; iVariantGuide, for genetic variant analysis; and iBioGuide, a life science search engine. Currently, 9 of the top 10 pharma companies rely on Advaita’s state-of-the-art algorithms to solve complex problems. AdvaitaBio’s proprietary algorithms modernize this process with solutions designed to provide superior results at a lower price, simplify collaborations, and generate beautiful publication-ready graphics.