- Israeli Health Ministry approves expanded clinical trial for COVID-19 therapy…
- Previous trial showed “complete success” using stem cell therapy…
- Bonus Biogroup expects global market for its treatment to exceed $43 billion per year…
Bonus Biogroup Ltd (OTCMKTS: BBIXF) more than tripled today after some good news for its drug developed to treat COVID-19.
BBIXF stock jumped more than 240% in the afternoon session and closed up 127.27% at $1.00 per share.
This comes after The Jerusalem Post reported the Israeli Health Ministry approved the expanded use of Bonus Biogroup’s stem cell therapy MesenCure for COVID patients.
The Ministry approved any interested hospital in Israel to participate in the Phase II trial for the drug and to use the treatment for additional approved patients.
The expanded trial will include at least 50 patients and is being conducted to confirm the safety and efficacy of the drug.
Resounding Success in Previous Trial
The expansion of that trial comes after Bonus Biogroup announced in May “complete success” in treating COVID patients with MesenCure.
The Phase I trial of the treatment was conducted at the Rambam Healthcare Campus in Haifa, Israel.
Dr. Shadi Hamoud, the principal investigator of the clinical trial, said, “The results of the treatment with MesenCure, thus far, are very impressive and are significantly better compared to the results achieved with other therapies.”
“All patients treated with MesenCure were in a severe condition, exhibiting acute respiratory distress, with diffuse pneumonia as per chest radiographs, and blood parameters indicating the presence of cytokine storm,” said Hamoud. “Moreover, about 90% of the trial participants suffered from comorbidities known as risk factors for increased disease severity, complications and mortality.”
Rambam Healthcare Campus | Editorial credit: aquatarkus / Shutterstock.com
“These patients’ prognosis was poor, with low chances of recovery and survival, hasn’t it been for MesenCure. However, thanks to the treatment with Bonus BioGroup’s MesenCure, the patients demonstrated a significant improvement in the tested parameters, and were released from hospital only one day (median calculation) following treatment end.”
Bonus Biogroup said chest x-rays showed a 40% reduction in lung inflammation from the treatment in the first five days.
Prior to treatment, inflammation was seen in “a median of approximately 55% of the lung area”.
That dropped to “a median of approximately 15% of the lung area only five days after starting the treatment, and up to a negligible median of about 1% of the lung area about a month after treatment initiation.”
The Phase I trial also found significant improvement in blood oxygen saturation levels, the severity of pneumonia and cytokine storm, and reduction in tissue injury.
The company also reported improvements in patient mobility, ability for self-care, performing of routine activities, and degree of pain and anxiety.
The trial included patient questionnaires that were answered by the participants prior to treatment and about two weeks after.
The patients’ assessment of their overall well-being in those questionnaires improved by more than 11 points on average.
Bonus Biogroup said all of the severe COVID patients treated with MesenCure were released from the hospital one day after treatment end without any need for respiratory support.
That’s compared to a mortality rate of 35.5% in severe COVID patients from “a meta-analysis of 52 observational studies performed on more than 43,000 severe coronavirus patients with medical condition similar to the participants in the clinical trial for the treatment of respiratory distress.”
During the Phase II trial “the experiment group will receive intravenously three doses of MesenCure.”
Bonus Biogroup says the parameters that will be evaluated include respiratory functions, inflammatory parameters that indicate the attenuation of the cytokine storm characteristic of the disease, general parameters that indicate the course of the disease, the shortening in the hospitalization period, and the increase in patient survival.
The company expects the treatment to be vital as more variants of the virus emerge.
BBIXF Stock Top Eight
- Bonus Biogroup was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Haifa, Israel.
- The company has been working with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) for decades.
- Bonus Biogroup started investigating the potential of MSCs to possibly reduce the cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients in early 2020.
- The company says the treatment could also be used for lower respiratory tract infections, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the future.
- Bonus Biogroup expects that to be a global market that will exceed $43 billion per year by 2026.
- BBIXF stock closed at $0.44 per share on Tuesday and opened at $0.47 per share today.
- The stock hit a daily high of $1.50 per share in afternoon trade.
- The company has a market cap of more than $466 million.
Featured cover image credit: eamesBot/Shutterstock.com