Rationale for Considering Oral Idasanutlin as a Therapeutic Option for COVID-19 Patients

The spread of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), firstly detected in Wuhan (China) at the end of 2019, has rapidly reached pandemic status. At the present time, under the “pressure” of the infection the need of effective and innovative treatments is becoming crucial. In particular, new insights into potential innovative therapeutic interventions, including the repositioning of pharmaceutical compounds already available that may be useful to control and contrast coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 are needed, also in the view of potential second waves of infection. With this aim, we here describe the rationale for the use of Idasanutlin, an orally available, potent and selective small-molecule antagonist of MDM2 acting as non-genotoxic p53 activator to treat COVID-19 patients and support its clinical evaluation.