Peginterferon lambda: Promising Results for New COVID Treatment

[Manouche]

"Peginterferon lambda has tremendous therapeutic potential, and we continue to see the emergence of aggressive variants of the virus spreading around the globe which are less sensitive to both vaccines and treatment with antibodies," said researcher Jordan Feld, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, in a news release. "Resistance due to variants or new strains of the virus could be an issue with some therapies, but this may not be a concern with peginterferon lambda due to its mechanism of action that involves activation of multiple virus-killing pathways."

medscape.com/viewarticle/98...?

[light]

Hi there, thank you for sharing. This is quite interesting development. Wishing you well.

[EPguy]

Good option for Covid. It does require within 3 days of symptoms, a tighter window than the pills. But it's a long way from approval.

Looking briefly to IFN-λ:

In context of tumor suppression: "Given that IFN-λ signaling triggers similar downstream gene expression, (to alpha and beta) but in a restricted subset of IFNLR-bearing cells, it could serve as a more targeted therapeutic option" "In support of this concept, IFNLR signaling (via IFN-λ) induces apoptosis in colorectal cancer cells more potently than (including the one we use) IFN-α/β or IFN-γ"

In this example IFN-λ is superior for a certain cancer cell, presumably usable in lower doses.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

IFN-λ is a type 3, we use a type 1. Always wondering whether the one we use was the best choice. I've read its selection was not fully informed, reasonable as nothing early on is. Could an early choice of a different one have been preferred re side effects etc? Unlikely anyone will redo all the IFN work to find out, as alpha is a fine option and immunotherapies are the big frontier now.

[Manouche in reply to EPguy]

 Hi EPguy,

« IFN-λ is a type 3, we use a type 1. Always wondering whether the one we use was the best choice ».

True! This is what Hasselbalch has to say about IFN- β:

« Whereas several studies have shown rIFN-β to be an effective antiviral agent [], its role as an anticancer agent has been overshadowed by rIFN-α2, despite the fact that rIFN-β indeed exhibits similar or even perhaps better anticancer capabilities than those of rIFN-α2…)

mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/c...