NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health, which is an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The trial will target patients who have been treated for severe Covid-19 disease, as they are expected to continue with respiratory complications.
BIO 300 is an oral drug, which has to be self-administered by patients for 12 weeks following discharge from the hospital.
According to the company, the study’s primary endpoint will be at 12 weeks and patients will be followed for one year.
The trial will compare the lung function, exercise capacity and quality of life in Covid-19 survivors who secure BIO 300, against a group receiving a placebo.
The physicians from the NYU Langone Health, which has treated more than 10,000 Covid-19 patients, will conduct the trial.
Dr Rany Condos is taking responsibility of the BIO 300 study. He is taking an initiative to set up a post-Covid-19 recovery clinic and patient registry at NYU Langone Health.
NYU Langone intends to follow patients long-term to better evaluate the effects of recovering from Covid-19.
NYU Grossman School of Medicine pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine division director Dr Daniel Sterman said: “We don’t fully understand the long-term effects of Covid-19 and are concerned that discharged patients will continue to suffer respiratory complications.”
BIO 300 is under advanced development by the company as a medical countermeasure to protect the body from damage caused by ionising radiation.
Initially, BIO 300 was identified by researchers at the US Department of Defense as part of their efforts to create radio-protective drugs for the military.
Humanetics, which further expanded applications for the drug into cancer radiation therapy, recently concluded a clinical study in lung cancer patients who develop pulmonary injury linked to their radiation treatments.
Recently, Celltrion Group commenced phase 1 human clinical study to evaluate the potential of its antiviral antibody treatment for patients with Covid-19.