Multicentric, Randomized Study to Assess Safety and Efficacy of Centhaquine in Patients With ARDS

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening condition with a diffuse, inflammatory form of lung injury, causing pulmonary infiltration and respiratory failure leading to poor oxygenation. It is a rapidly progressive form of respiratory failure and accounts for approximately 10% of admissions to the intensive care unit (ICU) and has a high mortality (40%) in severe cases. Globally, approximately 3 million ARDS cases are reported each year, with around 200,000 cases seen in the United States.

The etiology of ARDS could be pulmonary or extra-pulmonary. Patients with ARDS have symptoms like difficulty in breathing, shortness of breath, and cyanosis, and they may require assisted breathing/ventilatory support/extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. About 25% of ARDS patients need mechanical ventilation to support breathing; however, a ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) is known to further exacerbate ARDS in many of them. In recent decades, numerous efforts have been made to develop therapies for treating/managing ARDS. Unfortunately, they have been largely unsuccessful or inconclusive, and at present, no effective pharmacological therapy for ARDS is available. Hence, development of better therapeutics for ARDS is an unmet need.

Centhaquine is a first-in-class resuscitative agent for hypovolemic shock approved for marketing in India. Centhaquine has been found to be an effective resuscitative agent in rat, rabbit, and swine models of hemorrhagic shock. Its safety and tolerability have been demonstrated in a human phase I study in 25 subjects (CTRI/2014/06/004647). Results from multicentric, randomized, double-blind, parallel, controlled clinical phase II (CTRI/2017/03/008184) and phase III (CTRI/2019/01/017196) studies conducted in India indicate that centhaquine is a novel, first-in-class, highly effective resuscitative agent for hypovolemic shock. A total of 155 patients with hypovolemic shock have been studied in the combined phase II and III trials, while a multicentric phase IV study (NCT05956418) in 400 patients with hypovolemic shock is currently being conducted in India. The outcomes of the completed trials indicate that centhaquine is safe and reduces mortality significantly (P=0.0271) compared to standard treatment of hypovolemic shock. In the phase II and III studies, ARDS and MODS were evaluated as secondary endpoints. Centhaquine provided hemodynamic stability and significantly reduced ARDS and multiple organ dysfunction score (MODS) in patients enrolled in these trials, which suggests that centhaquine has potential beyond treating hypovolemic shock and could be useful for ARDS treatment. Centhaquine is likely to provide hemodynamic stability, improve tissue oxygenation, reduce pulmonary edema, reduce ARDS score, and reduce MODS in patients with ARDS.