Rationale for Considering Oral Idasanutlin as a Therapeutic Option for COVID-19 Patients
Giorgio Zauli, Veronica Tisato, Paola Secchiero
Abstract
The spread of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), firstly \ndetected in Wuhan (China) at the end of 2019, has rapidly reached pandemic status. At the present \ntime, under the “pressure” of the infection the need of effective and innovative treatments is \nbecoming crucial. In particular, new insights into potential innovative therapeutic interventions, \nincluding the repositioning of pharmaceutical compounds already available that may be useful to \ncontrol and contrast coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 are needed, also \nin the view of potential second waves of infection. With this aim, we here describe the rationale for \nthe use of Idasanutlin, an orally available, potent and selective small-molecule antagonist of MDM2 \nacting as non-genotoxic p53 activator to treat COVID-19 patients and support its clinical evaluation.