RE: UNIVERSAL Update from Prof Tom Wilkinson 12/01/2323 Mar 2023 11:55
UNIVERSAL was conceived as the last patients were being recruited for Sprinter. We don't know whose idea it was but we can be reasonably certain that Tom Hopkinson was wearing both his UoS and Synairgen hats and that Synairgen was an important partner from the outset. It's reasonable to believe that it was expected to support the onward development of SNG001 post Covid approval as a multi-virus therapeutic.
When Sprinter failed the main thrust of Covid R&D was arrested but at the same time new positives arrived for COPD and LC - which supported the second , originally subsidiary work thread and turned the focus back towards UNIVERSAL.
As I said yesterday UNIVERSAL is exactly the multi-virus platform trial Synairgen have been looking for - lacking only the drug itself.
Is UNIVERSAL the main show now ? We all hope not, because despite what TW said in January, it will still take a very long time to complete the trial ( which is still only running in 2 hospitals despite an ambition for 10 - according to the registry anyway ) and produce the peer -reviewed data that will allow the trial to be adapted for SNG001. So we'd still have a very long wait.
And of course many of us still believe the case for SNG's inclusion on STRIVE to be compelling. I expected Paxlovid to be the next protease inhibitor to join STRIVE based on viral clearance - but this case has weakened recently. SNG is the only drug anywhere with strong Covid inpatient data - and its the deep dive showed a clear pathway to success even with SoC improvements.
So 2 arrows still in the air - remembering that UNIVERSAL is NOT Synairgen's trial but also believing with a reasonable degree of certainty, that when Tom Wilkinson wrote "Although there is no drug involved as yet " the unnamed absent drug he's talking about is certainly SNG001.