New COVID-19 Therapy: Vilobelimab

We have added the monoclonal antibody vilobelimab to the Covid-19 Host-directed Therapies class of primary drugs.

In April, the FDA granted an emergency use authorization for the use of vilobelimab (Gohibic®, InflaRx) for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized adults when administered within 48 hours of mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Vilobelimab is also mentioned in the NIH COVID treatment guidelines, although the guidelines neither recommend for nor against its use for the treatment of COVID-19.

Vilobelimab is an IgG4 antibody against human complement C5a, believed to play a role in the harmful immune response to SARS-CoV-2. C5 inhibitors may cause a weak inhibition of CYP3A4, but this is unlikely to be clinically relevant, and there are no relevant overlapping toxicities, so at time of publication, vilobelimab has a safe drug interaction profile.