GeNeuro Announces Recruitment of First Patients in All Five Swiss Centers in the First Personalized Medicine Clinical Trial Against Long-COVID Assessing Temelimab

Regulatory News:

GeNeuro (Euronext Paris: CH0308403085 - GNRO) (Paris:GNRO), a biopharmaceutical company focused on stopping causal factors driving the progression of neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC, long-COVID or post-COVID), today announced the recruitment of first patients in its Phase 2 trial evaluating temelimab against long-COVID at the Geneva University Hospitals post-COVID clinic (lead centre), as well as in all the other Swiss clinical centres participating to the study, i.e., Inselspital in Bern, REHAB Basel, Kantonsspital Graubünden in Chur and the Centre Hospitalier du Valais Romand in Sion (for more information, please refer to clinical trials.gov or to GeNeuro’s web site).

The expression of the pathogenic W-ENV protein triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 infection, continuing long after the acute phase has been resolved, is suspected to have a major role in the persistence of inflammation in many long-COVID patients, and may explain many of the nervous system disorders that patients experience, such as cognitive losses and fatigue.

The 6-month multicentre personalized medicine trial will recruit 200 patients who are positive for the presence of the pathogenic W-ENV protein in their blood. The trial will evaluate temelimab, the anti-W‑ENV antibody developed by GeNeuro, as a Disease Modifying Therapy in long-COVID patients suffering from concentration or fatigue problems. It will assess the efficacy of the treatment with temelimab over 6 months on improvement in cognitive impairment or fatigue.

“We are delighted to be able to study this therapeutic approach for patients who are suffering from impairing long-COVID syndromes. We are in dire need of treatments for these patients who are often helpless,” said Prof. Idris Guessous, Head of the Department of Primary Care Medicine of HUG, founder of the long-COVID clinic opened at the HUG since November 2020, and Principal Investigator of the study. “We hope that this trial targeting the W-ENV pathogenic protein will allow us to develop a personalized medicine approach, treating patients who are positive for this pathogenic protein.”