As SARS-Cov-2 / COVID-19 continues to dominate our lives, the world is looking for a way to get back to “Normal”. Unfortunately, “Normal”, is a long ways off and may have to be redefined in general. Public health officials are confident that broad vaccination will move us in the right direction. This is reinforced by recent comments from the new Biden Administration. However, better – safer and more effective – medicines (therapeutics) like NDC-1308 are a necessity. Most COVID-19 patients die from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and not from the SARS-CoV-2 infection itself. Providing better health outcomes and reducing mortality for this group of COVID-19 patients remains an unmet medical need and an important societal need.

As presented in a recent article in The Atlantic (“The Next Phase of Vaccination Will Be Even Harder,” Sarah Zhang, January 7, 2021), there are unresolved issues with vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 and its emerging variants:

…. public health officials will need to persuade the uninterested, the reluctant, and even the skeptical to get vaccinated, so that communities can reach the 70-90% necessary for herd immunity.  The hardest work is ahead.

NDC-1308 has the ability to directly reduce inflammation, hyperinflammation and the “cytokine storm” within patients’ lungs, and therefore, reduce the risk of developing acute respiratory failure. In addition to treating the direct effects of ARDS in patients, ENDECE data shows NDC-1308 is also capable of reducing the SARS-CoV-2 viral load within the lungs as it has the potential to reduce ACE2 receptors threefold. ACE2 receptors are the point-of-entry for the SARS-CoV-2 virus into cells.

ENDECE is excited about the promise of NDC-1308 for the treatment of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and specifically as a much needed treatment of ARDS in COVID-19 patients.