April 24, 2020 / Modern Healthcare
(Crain’s Chicago Business) Northwestern Memorial Hospital is among medical centers testing a rheumatoid arthritis drug as a possible treatment for severely or critically ill COVID-19 patients.
The Streeterville hospital is enrolling patients in a global clinical trial studying sarilumab, also known by the brand name Kevzara, Northwestern Medicine said today. 
Severe cases of COVID-19 can cause a dangerous immune system response called cytokine storm, in which the body attacks itself rather than the virus. The trial aims to determine whether the injectable prescription medication, developed by Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, helps alleviate the overactive inflammatory responses in the lungs, according to a statement from the health system.
Northwestern is using diagnostic tests developed in-house to look for infection in patients receiving the drug, the statement says. The study will compare the response of people who get sarilumab to a smaller control group of patients taking a placebo.
“Very often with new diseases, people try multiple things at once, making it difficult to tell what, if anything, worked,” Dr. Richard Wunderink, Northwestern’s medical intensive care unit director, said in the statement. “Researchers in China gave a similar drug to a small number of people and observed what they thought were good effects. It is important to confirm—or not—these findings before we use this medication routinely. We also need to look to see if there are unexpected side effects of the drug in these patients.”