LifeArc, a major UK-based charity, has announced funding for Treventis founders Dr. Donald Weaver, Christopher Barden, and Mark Reed to perform a repurposing clinical trial in inhaled furosemide for patients on mechanical ventilation due to COVID-19.
This funding, awarded through a highly competitive rapid-response process starting on March 30, was awarded on Jun 30. This “Furosemide as Supportive Therapy (FaST)” study is a multi-center trial at University Health Network, Kingston General Hospital, and other sites throughout Canada. The rationale for this approach, which involves the repurposing of a cheap and highly available generic, comes from a serendipitous finding about furosemide in Dr. Weaver’s groundbreaking neuroinflammation research (for which he was named a Harrington Scholar-Innovator in December 2019).
Further information about this approach is summarized in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences and a recent publication in PeerJ.
Treventis congratulates these founders on their discovery and wishes them success in a very timely and important area of research.