Hi xxxxxx – thanks for your patience while I had our internal COVID expert review. The preprint study does not affect our COVID clinical trial. That is moving forward and we will announce when the first patient is dosed.

Here are some high level comments from the preprint article:

1. The findings of this study have not yet been through the peer-review process and have not been published in a scientific journal.

1. There is no indication that apabetalone was studied by this research group, and no apabetalone data is presented in the preprint article. Any attempt to apply its findings to apabetalone would be speculative.

1. The researchers studied the interactions of BET proteins with SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins, and the impact of these interactions on viral replication. Their experiments were not designed to study the effects of BET inhibitors on viral entry into cells.

1. Multiple studies have confirmed that BET inhibitors – including apabetalone – are effective at reducing SARS-CoV-2 viral replication in human cells, by preventing the virus from entering cells in the first place.

1. The mouse model, and one of the cell lines, chosen for this research were inappropriate to study COVID-19 treatment by a therapy with an epigenetic mechanism of action.

1. Neither of the two BET inhibitors used in this study have the established clinical safety profile of apabetalone.