US based Global Coalition for Adaptive Research and Japanese firm Eisai Co., Ltd., in collaboration with UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), have announced that Eisai will join REMAP-COVID, a substudy of REMAP-CAP (A Randomized, Embedded, Multifactorial, Adaptive Platform trial for Community-Acquired Pneumonia) that tests multiple interventions for the treatment of patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

Eritoran, an investigational TLR-4 antagonist discovered and developed by Eisai, has been selected as the first investigational immune modulation therapy to be evaluated in the moderate patient group of REMAP-COVID.

The trial will be conducted in the multi-hospital UPMC health system along with other medical centers in the United States. Additional global sites across the trial network, including Japan, will follow.

Previously observed to be safe in a large Phase 3 randomized trial in sepsis, eritoran is designed to suppress the over-production and release of various pro-inflammatory mediators (“cytokine storm”) with the aim to protect against damage in COVID-19 patients’ lungs and other organs.

REMAP-CAP is led by the world’s leading critical care trialists and experts in pandemic and infectious disease outbreaks, virology, immunology, emergency medicine, and Bayesian statistics. REMAP-CAP has enrolled over 1100 patients at 218 sites across North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand