Cytokind, Inc. Announces 1st COVID-19 Patient Enrolled in the Adaptive Photo-Protection Trial

June 10, 2021 – Exeter, NH – Cytokind, Inc. (“Cytokind” or “company”) is announcing the first patient treated in the Adaptive Photo-Protection Trial which provides a phototherapy treatment to hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The trial is a collaboration with Louisiana State University Health Center (LSUHC), West Jefferson Medical Center (WJMC), Marrero, LA, and Cytokind.

“Treating the first patient has been a great team effort, including the clinical expertise of West Jefferson, researchers from LSUHC, and support from Cytokind. We are so excited to be moving a known safe and effective therapy from one field of medicine into the COVID-19 fight. It’s a real community effort,” said Frank Lau, MD, FACS, Professor of Clinical Surgery for LSUHC – New Orleans, and a Co-Principal Investigator of the clinical trial. “Together increased vaccination rates and the normal seasonal increase in sunlight that boosts our immune stability have helped reduced hospital caseloads and deaths across the country. This pandemic has also taught us to look out globally for what is coming next. This trial will help us be prepared for new variants and the seasonal fall–off in immune health later in the year. The team at West Jefferson is on the front lines of this research by providing this option to their patients.”

Natural sunlight upon our skin provides the fuel necessary to stabilize our immune system and in parallel, elevates our natural vitamin D. Phototherapy, the delivery of a narrowband of ultraviolet B-Band light (NB-UVB), has been effectively used to calm overreactive immune disorders for decades in chronic and acute diseases such as psoriasis and Graft versus Host Disease, a deadly condition for bone marrow transplant patients. Phototherapy offers patients much more than vitamin D pills.

West Jefferson is the first of up to 10 national sites. This trial is an example of LSUHC‘s commitment to be a hub for basic research and clinical innovation in the fight against COVID-19 and beyond.

About Cytokind Inc.

Cytokind, Inc. was founded to advance phototherapy with the rigor of a new cancer drug for COVID-19 and further clinical applications. For more information, please visit www.cytokind.net

About The Adaptive Photo-Protection Trial

The Adaptive Photo-Protection Trial protocol, NCT # 04818970, is a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial for high-risk hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The trial will test whether the safe and effective treatment of phototherapy known to improve outcomes and survival in bone marrow transplant patients can do the same for high-risk COVID-19 patients.

The level of vitamin D at the time of hospitalization is the number one predictor of COVID-19 outcomes. Our bodies normally produce our own vitamin D when a narrow band of ultraviolet light from the sun, NB-UVB, reaches our skin. Unfortunately, taking oral vitamin D supplements has not consistently improved outcomes. Phototherapy offers much more than supplements.

By providing phototherapy to the bedside, NB-UVB will engage the body’s naturally evolve photo-immune pathway and produce dozens of immune balancing biomarkers and cytokines to promote immune stability, as well as to elevate vitamin D naturally. The trial will test whether phototherapy’s immune balancing effect will be sufficient to improve outcomes in these high-risk patients.

Dr. Frank Lau, Professor of Clinical Surgery and Principal Investigator of the tissue engineering lab, and Dr. Robert Chugden, WJMC Chief Medical Officer, are the Co-Principal Investigators of this trial. Dr. Andrew DiNardo and his team at the Baylor School of Medicine-Infectious Disease lab will assess the treatment of phototherapy with the same OMICs–based rigor Baylor applies to new cancer drugs.