Combination therapy with oral antiviral and anti-inflammatory drugs improves the efficacy of delayed treatment in severe COVID-19

Pulmonary infection with SARS-CoV-2 stimulates host immune responses and can also result in the progression of dysregulated and critical inflammation. Throughout the pandemic, the management and treatment of COVID-19 has been continuously updated with a range of antiviral drugs and immunomodulators. Monotherapy with oral antivirals has proven to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19. However, the treatment should be initiated in the early stages of infection to ensure beneficial therapeutic outcomes, and there is still room for further consideration on therapeutic strategies using antivirals. Here, we show that the oral antiviral ensitrelvir combined with the anti-inflammatory corticosteroid methylprednisolone has higher therapeutic effects and better outcomes in a delayed dosing model of SARS-CoV-2 infected hamsters compared to the monotherapy with ensitrelvir or methylprednisolone alone. Combination therapy with these drugs improved respiratory conditions and the development of pneumonia in hamsters even when the treatment was started after 2 days post infection. The combination therapy led to a differential histological and transcriptomic pattern in comparison to either of the monotherapies, with reduced lung damage and down-regulated expressions of genes involved in inflammatory response. Furthermore, we found that the combination treatment is effective in infection with both highly pathogenic delta and circulating omicron variants. Our results demonstrate the advantage of combination therapy with antiviral and corticosteroid drugs in COVID-19 treatment. Since both drugs are available as oral medications, this combination therapy could provide a clinical and potent therapeutic option for COVID-19.