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A drug normally used to treat prostate cancer could be used to treat Covid by preventing the virus from multiplying inside patients' lungs, scientists have found.
Enzalutamide is a treatment for advanced prostate cancer and works by blocking the effect of testosterone on prostate cancer cell growth.
But experts at Essex University and Imperial College London found it also reduces levels of a protein that Covid uses to invade cells in the respiratory system.
This gives the virus less opportunity to infect.
The protein, called TMPRSS2, helps the virus enter the lungs by ‘priming’ the sharp bumps that protrude from the surface of the coronavirus, allowing them to bind to our cells.
Male sex hormones known as androgens are known to increase the levels of the protein. This could be one reason why men have been hit harder than women during the pandemic.
The latest research showed that treatment with Enzalutamide reduces levels of TMPRSS2 in lab-grown human lung cells.
Enzalutamide costs £24 per capsule, and is available on the NHS for prostate cancer patients.
Enzalutamide stops prostate cancer cells from growing by blocking male sex hormones androgens. Scientists at the University of Exeter and Imperial College London have now found that the drug also reduces the levels of a protein found in cells that Covid uses to enter the body, meaning less of the virus was able to enter and infect lung cells
One protein on the surface of cells - called TMPRSS2 - interacts with the spikes on SARS-CoV-2 in a way that lets them into human cell (left). Scientists used a prostate cancer drug which stops TMPRSS2 from being made and had the knock on effect of preventing as much Covid from entering lung cells (right)
Most importantly, it significantly blocked Covid entry and infection.
The drug was found to reduce viral entry into lung cells by around 50 per cent, and reduced viral infection 18-fold.
Dr Greg Brooke, who co-led the study, said: ‘Men are more likely to become seriously unwell and die from Covid compared to women. This suggests the male sex hormone androgen may play a role in SARS-CoV-2 severity.
‘For many years I have been working on the role of androgens in cancer so was able to use this knowledge to investigate if antiandrogens, drugs used for the treatment of prostate cancer, reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection.
‘We demonstrated that these drugs reduce the ability of the virus to enter the lungs and, therefore, our data
