I think it would be wonderful if Cytodyn were able to farm out an indication like Covid and let another drug company bring their resources to bear in an effort to provide regulatory approval; I would not rule it out and it could happen, I’m just suggesting Cytodyn has made it clear they are not pursuing it. I thought the covid19 tsunami in China once they abandoned strict isolation would have been a golden opportunity…in a few days you could have enrolled large numbers for a highly powered study and in short order have unimpeachable evidence of efficacy that a regulatory approval body could not ignore. Since early December there have been over 60,000 covid deaths in China. Seemed like a win win to me…China opens up with relative impunity with miracle drug in hand…the financial impact of allowing their GDP to ramp back up might have tempted them to even underwrite study costs. Suggesting as much to Cyrus back then he made it quite clear Cytodyn will remain focused and is no longer pursuing any covid indication. Any work in that area would imply another company approaches Cytodyn for partnership of some sort…possible, I just think it is unlikely…and I appreciate Cyrus insistence on discipline in the near term to execute on priorities.
The other point I was trying to make is simply that the regeneron neutralizing antibody previously approved for acute covid19 locks on to a viral epitope, rendering the virus incapable of further fusion to host cells (and the epitope changed with omicron rendering it useless), whereas Leronlimab does not interact with the virus directly but as a CCR5 blocker is focused on our CCR5 expressing cells with downstream effects related to cytokine signaling, inflammation and immune cell function.