- I'm professor Tom Wilkinson.
I'm professor of Respiratory Medicine
in the faculty of medicine
at the university of Southampton.
I work here in the faculty,
leading a research group,
looking into the mechanisms
by which the human lung
defends itself against viral infections.
Before the coronavirus outbreak,
I was working with a company
that spun out from the faculty
of medicine called Cinegen
And we were trialling a new
drug called interferon beta,
which was designed to help
fight viral infections
in the lung.
This study, was due to
complete in early 2020,
where we heard the news
that the coronavirus
was spreading rapidly from China
and affecting people in
Italy and wider in Europe.
We made a decision very
rapidly at that point
to pivot our activity to face
the on sort of the coronavirus
and to target particularly
the ability of this new
treatment interferon beta
to help fight the coronavirus infection.
- My name is Lee Hennen.
I'd like to share my experience
having contracted COVID-19,
and being hospitalised for eight days,
having been admitted into hospital
with acute respiratory failure.
Where I participated
with the inhaled interferon
beta programme clinical trial.
Once in hospital, I was
placed on the covered wood
and put on oxygen and started treatment
of antibiotics for the
pneumonia, which had developed.
With the programme the
drug is administered
for an electronic nebulizer.
The nebulizer recognises the
exact time you draw breath
where it then injects the drug.
I have to take 14 doses of this drug,
one dose taking daily.
At the start of the treatment,
I'll remember really to
struggle drawing breath,
taking around 13 or 14 minutes
or so to complete a cycle.
By the end of that second
week of my recovery,
I remember very vividly
waking up in the morning
as though somebody had turned
an oxygen supply to my lungs,
I could breathe again.
- When we wrote the code of the study
with the statisticians,
we found that there was
a very positive signal,
and the interferon beta treated patients
have recovered apart twice as
quickly as the control arm.
And that's, there was a reduced incidents
of intensive care, admission and death
in the treated patients
compared to placebo.
And this was very positive signal.
And this has led to its
relevant future patterns
for this treatment
in large scale clinical
trials internationally.
And hopefully it's the
first step in the generation
of a new treatment for COVID-19.
(upbeat music)
