Non-interventional, retrospective, multi-center, follow-up study evaluating the effect of the angiotensin II type 2 receptor agonist C21 on lung pathology in subjects previously hospitalised with COVID-19

The ATTRACT-2 (angiotensin II type 2 receptor agonist COVID-19 trial-2; VP-C21-007) study is an extension of the recently completed phase 2 ATTRACT trial (VP-C21-006), which showed that treatment with C21 on top of standard of care significantly reduced the proportion of subjects requiring supplemental oxygen at Day 14, indicating faster recovery with C21 treatment compared to placebo. The aim of this follow-up study was to investigate whether or not short-term C21 treatment also induces a long-term effect on lung disease severity in subjects previously hospitalised with COVID-19. ATTRACT-2 was a non-interventional, retrospective, observational follow-up study that investigated the effect of C21 on lung pathology as assessed by CT scans, recorded as a part of local clinical practice 90-170 days after the 7-day treatment period, from a subset of 33 subjects with COVID-19 participating in the parent phase 2 trial. The C21-treated subjects (n=17) displayed numerically reduced total disease severity score on CT (mean 10.3%) at follow-up compared to the placebo-treated subjects (n=16) (19.2%); the dominating CT abnormality was ground glass opacity, a feature that has been previously reported as being associated with poorer lung function in post COVID. The results showed a nearly 50% relative reduction in CT disease severity score at follow-up in the C21 group compared to the placebo group, indicating that short-term treatment with C21 has the potential to reduce long-term lung injury in subjects previously hospitalised with COVID-19.