British medical team: rheumatic drugs to treat the new crown pneumonia patients with severe disease has been effective

A team of medical researchers, including professors from Oxford University in the UK, said on the 11th that the rheumatoid arthritis drug Actemra, developed by Japanese academics and pharmaceutical companies, has the effect of reducing the risk of death in patients with severe pneumonia in Wuhan.

Kyodo News reported that Actemra (scientific name Tocilizumab) is a rheumatoid arthritis drug jointly developed by Osaka University and Chinese and foreign pharmaceutical companies. The research team, which received a grant from the British government, conducted a clinical trial of the drug in more than 4,000 patients with pneumonia in Wuhan.

About half of the participants in the clinical trial were treated with Advil and half received general treatment. In comparison, the death rate was 29% for the former and 33% for the latter.

Advil is a biological treatment agent that blocks the action of interleukin-6 (IL-6) to achieve anti-inflammatory and immune modulating effects.

Most of the patients in this clinical trial were also treated with the synthetic corticosteroid dexamethasone. The team believes that the combination of Antenatal and dexamethasone can halve the risk of death in critically ill patients who need to wear artificial respirators.