BerGenBio ASA announced that the first patient has been included in a study of BerGenBio's oral, highly selective AXL inhibitor, bemcentinib, as part of the EU-SolidAct trial in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The EU-SolidAct trial (European DisCoVeRy for Solidarity: An Adaptive Pandemic and Emerging Infection Platform Trial) is part of EU-RESPONSE, a pan-European research project designed to investigate treatment options for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and emerging infectious diseases. Bemcentinib was selected by an international group of experts to be studied in the EU-SolidAct platform in up to 500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in a Phase 2b, multi-center, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

The EU-SolidAct platform trial includes 68 clinical sites in 8 countries and is sponsored by Oslo University Hospital, Norway, in collaboration with the Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm), France, and the not-for-profit intergovernmental organization European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN).