Europe’s medicines regulator is evaluating an application to use anakinra to treat COVID-19 in adults with pneumonia who are at risk of severe respiratory failure, the agency has announced.

Anakinra is the latest potential COVID-19 treatment to be reviewed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as the more infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus spurs an increase in cases.

Anakinra is an interleukin-1 (IL-1) receptor antagonist and, in Australia (Kineret, Menarini) is TGA-approved  for RA, systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis and cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes.

“It is thought that [IL-1 inhibition] could also help reduce the inflammation and tissue damage associated with COVID-19,” the EMA said in a statement.