At the end of 2022, GeNeuro launched a Phase 2 trial, called GNC-501, that is evaluating the clinical efficacy of a six-month treatment with temelimab, the anti-W-ENV antibody developed by GeNeuro, on the improvement of fatigue or cognitive impairment in post-COVID patients who are positive for the presence of W-ENV protein in their blood.

This precision medicine approach could, if the current clinical trial is successful, offer a therapeutic solution to a well identified subset of the millions of patients affected by long-COVID. 

Large-scale academic studies indicate that more than 10% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 do not fully recover and/or develop new symptoms, with a high proportion of neurological and/or psychiatric disorders. This problem is now recognized as a major public health emergency, as it is affecting millions of people.

The expression of the pathogenic W-ENV protein triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 infection, continuing long after the acute phase has been resolved, is suspected to have a major role in the persistence of inflammation in many long-COVID patients, and may explain many of the nervous system disorders that patients experience, such as cognitive losses and fatigue.

Many patients affected by neurological and psychiatric syndromes post COVID continue to express W-ENV: the W-ENV protein was observed in more than 25% of patients with persistent syndromes after having had COVID, as evidenced in a recent publication made available on MedRxiv.