Most Promising COVID-19 Treatments So Far: Will There be a Vaccine Soon?

COVID-19 treatments are being studied all over the world, but not all show promise. Labs are rushing towards developing therapeutic drugs that can reduce the severity of the disease.

Luckily, there are ones that show some good results and could be the COVID-19 treatments the world is looking forward to in this time of need. Here are some promising leads for COVID-19 treatments:

Eli Lilly Monoclonal Antibodies

Dr. David Ho, who led the team that created the cocktail of drugs making HIV/AIDS survivable, told CBS News that monoclonal antibodies are showing promising results.

"They are promising," Dr. Ho told 60 Minutes. "There are two front-runners who have developed antibody. One is Lilly-- Eli Lilly and Company. And the other is Regeneron."

He noted that the Regeneron treatment was received by the president and, while results show promise, it's just that for now: promise.

Eli Lilly recently applied for emergency use approval of its experimental antibody treatment on Wednesday. Early findings show reduced virus levels in mild-to-moderate COVID-19 cases.

If this treatment gets approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it could help in improving treatments for early cases, said Wall Street Journal. If all goes well, there might even be a chance to prevent the coronavirus using this treatment.

Regeneron Monoclonal Antibodies

Meanwhile President Donald Trump said the Regeneron therapy was a "cure" for him. "It's a cure for me. I walked in. I didn't feel good. A short 24 hours later, I was feeling great," he said.

To clarify, Regeneron and Eli Lilly showed early results in their studies.

There was modest reduction in Regeneron's study with 275 patients and Lilly's antibody treatment reduced hospitalizations from 6% to 2%.

For Ho, these kinds of treatment still need more time to prove they are effective. They still need to enroll thousands of patients to participate in studies.

He also pointed out that monoclonal antibody treatments are generally safe, as it has been illustrated in cancer, inflammation and other medications.

4-PBA Against Inflammation

There is also an existing drug that may help in treating COVID-19 patients, noted Medical News Today. A team of researchers from the University of Málaga in Spain and the University of California, Los Angeles found this link in 4-phenylbutyric acid (4-PBA).

Their study in the journal Cytokine & Growth Factor Reviews, they proposed that 4-PBA can prevent excessive inflammation.

4-PBA is a drug treatment used for urea cycle disorders. Excessive inflammations can have some fatal effect, especially for severe COVID-19 cases.

Antiviral Remdesivir

Dr. Christina Brennan, vice president of clinical research at Northwell's Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research also shared the results of antiviral Remdesivir to CBS.

It was an antiviral developed for over a decade ago, originally to fight hepatitis C. But it wasn't effective.

It was also attempted as an ebola treatment but rendered itself ineffective as well. However, its results with COVID-19 turned a different direction.

Dr. Brennan said Remdesivir was showing promise in terms of shortening hospital stay of patients. With the treatment, patients go home in less than 10 days.

It was "encouraging, but not a magic bullet," she said.

While there are many treatments in development, the virus is also likely to adapt and mutate constantly. So the scientific community will have to keep up with these changes to take the changes into account.

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