Design and implementation of a translational drug development platform for COVID-19 to generate preclinical evidence in support of treatment arms of the ANTICOV clinical trial

Through the rapid establishment of a translational pathway, DNDi and its partners aim at providing the next generation of candidate medicines for SARS-CoV-2 clinical trials as well as integrating back-translations to validate the most appropriate preclinical models. The project is planned to run from September 2020-December 2021, with a total budget of 1.97M GBP, split into three pillars of activities composed of short and medium- term deliverables: Pillar 1 : Selection of the best combination of repurposed antiviral drugs to include into the 3rd arm of the ANTICOV clinical trial and the next back-ups Pillar 2 : Support candidate progression through an integrated pharmacometrics package involving both Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) and population pharmacokinetic (PopPK) modelling approaches Pillar 3 : Development of a translational platform and performance of a comparative analysis of selected drugs/combinations (including those from Pillar 1) to better understand and refine the screening cascade with best translational value; definition of a Target Candidate Profile (TCP) for SARS-CoV-2 mild infection This project will cement a collaborative partnership in the SARS-CoV-2 translational space that will pave the way to future longer-term discovery projects and preparedness for additional future threats. Key words: COVID-19 / Drug re-purposing / Translational drug development pathway