PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Conzelmann, Carina
AU  - Müller, Janis A
AU  - Perkhofer, Lukas
AU  - Sparrer, Konstantin MJ
AU  - Zelikin, Alexander N
AU  - Münch, Jan
AU  - Kleger, Alexander
TI  - Inhaled and systemic heparin as a repurposed direct antiviral drug for prevention and treatment of COVID-19
AID  - 10.7861/clinmed.2020-0351
DP  - 2020 Nov 01
TA  - Clinical Medicine
PG  - e218--e221
VI  - 20
IP  - 6
4099  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/20/6/e218.short
4100  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/20/6/e218.full
SO  - Clin Med2020 Nov 01; 20
AB  - Here, we advocate a highly favourable opportunity for the treatment of COVID-19 disease by repurposing a long-serving medical agent with an excellent history of clinical use, namely heparin. Heparin is best known as an anticoagulant, but it also exhibits direct antiviral activity against many enveloped viruses and has anti-inflammatory activity. The high incidence of thromboembolic events in COVID-19 patients suggests that coagulopathy plays an important role in the SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. This already makes heparin a unique, potentially curative agent that can be used immediately to help resolve the ongoing crisis associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease. We demonstrate here in vitro that heparin does indeed inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection. The three concurrent modes of activity of heparin (antiviral, anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory) against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 form a unique therapeutic combination. Thus, repurposing of heparin to fight SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 appears to be a powerful, readily available measure to address the current pandemic.