Spanish pharmaceutical company PharmaMar said on 26 January 2021 that that peer reviewed journal, Science, has published a paper that confirms that the company's drug Plitidepsin has a "potent preclinical efficacy" against COVID-19, Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday.

In a statement, PharmaMar said the Science paper reported that a study carried out in vitro and in vivo by a team of scientists in New York, San Francisco and Paris showed the drug leads to a reduction of viral replication, resulting in a 99% reduction of viral loads in the lungs of Plitidepsin-treated animals.

PharmaMar quoted Science as saying: "We believe that our data and the initial positive results from PharmaMar's clinical trial suggests that Plitidepsin should be strongly considered for expanded clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19."

Reportedly, Plitidepsin, already authorised in some markets to treat tumours, blocks a protein associated with the COVID-19 virus. Toxicity of the drug is well known and the doses used in COVID-19 trials are well tolerated in humans.

PharmaMar added that it was in talks with various regulatory agencies to start Phase III trials.