On Sept. 16, 2020, AIM ImmunoTech announced that recruitment had begun in Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Phase 1/2a clinical study of the effectiveness of rintatolimod (Ampligen) in combination with interferon alpha-2b in treating cancer patients with mild or moderate COVID-19 infection, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Roswell Park has reported through the national clinical-trials database ClinicalTrials.gov that recruitment is underway for the study, which is led by two senior leaders at the Buffalo, N.Y., cancer center: Brahm Segal, MD, and Pawel Kalinski, MD, PhD.

The study team describes their approach this way, as reported at ClinicalTrials.gov: “Interferon alpha is a protein important for defense against viruses. It activates immune responses that help to clear viral infection. Rintatolimod is double stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) designed to mimic viral infection by stimulating immune pathways that are normally activated during viral infection. Giving rintatolimod and interferon alpha-2b may activate the immune system to limit the replication and spread of the virus.”

Approximately 6.4 million people in the United States have been infected with COVID-19 and more than 190,000 have died.

Funding for the Roswell Park clinical trial is provided, in part, through grants from the National Cancer Institute and AIM, as well as institutional support from Roswell Park.